mr. demings. thank you, i support you in that. mr. demings, my sympathy to you for your community experienced. your experience and what you need in a fusion center to gather the intelligence you need. >> the fusion center plays a pivotal role in our state and as it relates to national security. last year we had 66.1 million visitors who came to orange county, where i'm from, and that was number one in the nation but with our fusion centers, while the primary focus is on counterterrorism efforts, it also has assisted in allowing us to manage natural disasters and also all crimes and so it is a pivotal tool preventing terror attacks but also preventing crimes from occurring in our community as well. >> mr. chairman, i have one last question. >> it's a brief one, i hope. >> it is, mr. chairman. first of all, i'll make this statement. i think getting guns off the street would help all of you including officers as we move toward dealing with this question of police/community relations but i offer a note about many of us who have a bill to c

mr. demings. thank you. i proport you. mr. demings, my sympathy to you for what your communitysy experienced. >> the fusion centers, again, they play a pivotal role in our state and really as it relates to national security.ce last year we had 66.1 millional visitors who came to orange county where i'm from, and that was number one in the nation. but with our fusion centers, while the primary focus is on counterterrorism efforts, it also has assisted in allowing us to manage natural disasters and also all crimes. and so it is pivotal to preventing terror takes, but also preventing crimes from p occurring in our community as well. >> mr. chairman, i have one last question -- >> it's a brief one, i hope?on >> yes, it is, mr. chairman. >> thank you. >> i do think getting guns off the street would help all of you, including officers, as we move toward this question dealing with police/community relations. but many of us have a bill to close the gun show loophole, and i have one that indicates toto report anytime guns are sold and y

mr. demings and mr. acevedo, what are the biggest problems you see with information sharing? one of the things i see is the first and foremost, how long it takes to get a background check, which is a maddening and has to get changed. what else do you see that we can work on and perhaps mr. miller can comment on ways in which we could fix it. the mou could be one of them, new york is trying to implement and maybe we can help us. i would like to hear from mr. deming, if i may. >> i will say we enjoy a pretty good relationship with our federal authorities there in the metropolitan orlando area. because of what we have there in terms of the theme parks. we have federal agents who are embedded within the theme parks, and that forces us to communicate. i do believe that there is still room for improvement, however. the situation i talked about earlier, in which a law enforcement officer stopped someone on the streets of our nation, when they do -- typically we're trained to check for -- run a national check to see if the person has any type of warrants or what have you, and we run

mr. demings. >> thank you. congressman that's a good question.rk extremely well with our federal partners but the communication is a salient point that we raised for a number of years. on many conference calls, we probably heard more about this incident than the news we're going to talk about today. you know, most of us i presume have top secret clearance sitting at this top, if not at least secret and there's a need for realtime information sharing on that capability. that's not in place. years ago, probably a decade ago i suggested they create such a platform. encrypted cell phone was created as such and i paid for it from my homeland security division chief. lo and behold found out they don't really work. >> so we don't have a device to communicate realtime. we almost have to go back to the days of runners where somebody has to go. >> you're talking about equipment. i'm talking about personal relationships. do y'all have a chance to interact and develop personal relationships so you know, bob, at the fbi or whoever is the key guy you need to g

mr. demings. >> that's a very good question.act and work extremely with our federal partners. but the communication is a salient part. in many of the conference calls, the preamble, you probably already heard more about this in the news than we're going to talk about today. most of us i presume has a top secret clearance at this table. if not at least secret. and there is a need for real-time information sharing on that capability. that's not in place. years ago -- probably a decade ago i suggested they create such a platform. an en crypted cell phone was created. we had a few of them. lo and me hold, they don't really work. we no longer have a device to communicate real-time on a direct pressing need. we almost have to go back to the days of runners where somebody -- >> you're talking more about equipment. i'm talking about personal relationships. do you have a chance to direct personal relationships so you know bob orr whoever at the fbi. >> yes. >> do you have a chance to do that? >> we do. we do. and we have great relationsh

mr. chairman, i yield back.itness i want to thank all of you for being here today. next we have sherif from oakland county sheriff office.ustin we have sheriff jerry deming's from the orange county sheriff office in orange county florida. we thank all of you for beingtyc here. i now would like to recognize the chief for his opening statement.ing st >> good morning, i come here today with the organization that represents 68 parts of the united states and homeland security committee. i want to thank mr. chairman and your committee for the outstanding leadership your work in this vital area at a time when i think the threat not only continues to expand the consequences of terrorism are hitting our communities every day. i can tell you the one thing that keeps us all up is the issue of the lone wolf. you been talking about lone wolves for several years now but in the last few days, we have seen the consequences of these needles in the haystack that ca become radicalized and we can no longer call this and emerging threat.ng it is an imminent threat and an ongoing threat and we must continue to fight. we have witnessed the horror of these lone wolves not just this weeken

mr. demings and mr. acevedo, what are the biggest problems you see with information sharing? one of the things i see is the first and foremost, how long it takes to get a background check, which is a maddening and has to get changed. what else do you see that we can work on and perhaps mr. miller can comment on ways in which we could fix it. the mou could be one of them, maybe using the model new york is trying to implement and maybe we can help us. i would like to hear from mr. deming, if i may. >> i will say we enjoy a pretty good relationship with our federal authorities there in the metropolitan orlando area. because of what we have there in terms of the theme parks. we have federal agents who are embedded within the theme parks, and that forces us to communicate. i do believe that there is still room for improvement, however. the situation i talked about earlier, in which a law enforcement officer stopped someone on the streets of our nation, when they do -- typically we're trained to check for -- run a national check to see if the person has any type of warrants or what