Business Safety Plan Checklist

Sheriff Dart recommends businesses complete and implement a Business Safety Plan to be used during any emergency to assist law enforcement and first responders upon arrival. As a service to all Cook County business owners, you will find below, in PDF form, the complete template for the Plan and a “Build Your Bag” checklist. These items will help in the event of a security-related incident or other emergency.

The Cook County Sheriff’s Business Safety Plan can be given to law enforcement personnel immediately upon their arrival on the scene. This will greatly assist police, firefighters and other first responders in knowing precisely what your facility presents in terms of layout, points of access, hazards, equipment and other important information – including personnel photos and numbers.

We urge you to complete these documents, make them familiar to all appropriate management and, of course, have them at the ready should a need arise. Thank you.

“Build Your Bag”

1. Duffle Bag / Backpack / Gym Bag

2. Master Keys

   • Have access to all areas of all the buildings

3. Blue Prints of Building

4. Map of Building

   • Your Building should be separated into zones for searching purposes

5. List of Emergency Codes

   • Code Black, Code Blue, Code Red, Code Orange

6. Paper Photos of Every Employee

   • Employees could be a hostage, suspect, victim

7. Paper Photos Designating Every Room in the Building

   • This would enable a closer look by law enforcement into the building

8. Box of Glow Sticks

9. Flashlight

10. Cellphone with Extra Charged Battery

11. Whistle

    • Able to alert searching personnel (Example: Natural disaster hits and you are barricaded in somewhere)

12. Laser Pointer

13. Pens

14. Notepad

15. First Aid Kit

16. Five Knit Incident Vests

    • Labeled Team Leader, HR Leader, Logistics Leader etc. to identify incident leaders for your business

17. Waterproof Document Holder

    • All paper documents secured to ensure no water damages the documents including photos