What the Palisades fire taught police about resilient communications

Most agencies have a communications plan — until the plan becomes the incident. In this episode of the Policing Matters podcast, host Jim Dudley digs into a reality many departments don’t fully plan for: what happens when cellular networks overload, land mobile radio coverage breaks down and agencies struggle to communicate at the very moment demand is highest. Jim is joined by LAPD Commander Randy Goddard, the acting commanding officer and chief information officer for the department’s Information Technology Bureau. Goddard also served as an incident commander during the Palisades fire and will lead LAPD’s Incident Management Team 1 for upcoming global events, including the 2026 FIFA World Cup and the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games. He explains what unified command looked like when key systems failed, why “coverage” is not the same as “capacity,” and what redundancy and manual backups need to look like in modern policing. Commander Goddard is a featured contributor to Police1’s “26 on 2026: A police leadership playbook.” Download your copy here . About our sponsor This episode of the Policing Matters podcast is sponsored by OfficerStore. Learn more about getting the gear you need at prices you can afford by visiting OfficerStore.com .

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What the Palisades fire taught police about resilient communications is an episode from Policing Matters by Police1.com.

This episode is 45:08 long.

This episode was published on Jan 14, 2026.

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