Stan,
Police Agencies throughout the country use non-sworn volunteers, sworn volunteers, and other community assets for the conduct of searches and other activities. They all have insurance policies or self insure for that liability. There is nothing new about that....they in this case were doing that very thing but not with the helicopter and its crew.
I reiterate my earlier post....the SO got caught flat footed on this one. They had a very valuable community asset, of which they were well acquainted with from prior business contacts. The pilot had flown missions for the SO...probably in the very aircraft possibly. That might explain why the crew talked to the SO on the SO's own radio frequency.
They just had not prior planned and coordinated the relationship thus what happened......happened. The "rules" did not allow for any flexibility by the officer coordinating the operation. More importantly, he was not about to assume that responsibility himself. That should tell us how bad things are getting in our society when well equipped, trained, capable people and assets cannot be incorporated into a government operation during times of disasters.
Does the name Katrina ring a bell....this is just a very small demonstration of what happened and still is happeneing in Louisana and the Gulf Coast in the wake of Katrina and Rita. Lots of people died in that disaster and two children could have died in this one. That is the point in all of this. We still have not learned our lessons from Katrina....even on a local scale.
The US Forest Service a several years ago declared a State of Emergency when Oregon was burning down one summer. It seemed the entire state, at least the part that had trees, was burning. Several small towns near Roseburg, Oregon were threatened by the massive fires in that area. We were called by the USFS...and volunteered four aircraft at no expense to the government. They were desperate for air assets. Result....they refused to use us because our aircraft were not USFS or OAS approved and carded.
Thus...it would seem...the rules got in the way of the emergency. We still did what we could but not with or for the USFS.
Somehow I figure lives outweigh rules any time....there comes a time to chuck the rule book out the window and Gitterdun!