Train with us now for the day shall come!
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Report finds workplace violence still a high risk, but awareness growing
Threats of workplace violence should remain at the
forefront for security professionals. The recent release of the 2011
Workplace Violence Fact Sheet found that more than 5,900 people have
been victims of homicide in the workplace in the last 10 years.
Workplace homicides continue to be the third leading cause of death for
people at work, according to the report, with an average of 590
homicides every year.
However, that number doesn’t include the number of attempts or
suicides that happen in the workplace, said Barry Nixon, founder and
executive director of the National Institute for the Prevention of
Workplace Violence, a consulting, training and research firm that
specializes in working with organizations to prevent workplace violence.
That number is much higher, he said.
The industries that are at the greatest risk for workplace violence include...read more
5 Gunfights That Changed Law Enforcement
Twenty-five years ago, eight FBI agents pursuing two
armed robbery suspects attempted a felony stop that resulted in a hail
of gunfire, four deaths, and a reexamination of law enforcement
weaponry, duty ammunition, body armor, and vehicle-stop tactics.
The gear and training employed by officers is much different today,
partly as a result of the FBI Miami shootout. There have been other
game-changing gunfights in the last quarter century. The following
article examines each of them and how they changed your tactics,
procedures, and policies.
We've ranked each one in order of importance (from fifth to first)
and settled on an even five just to simplify matters. There are others,
and there's no doubt a few readers will mention the Newhall incident in
which four California Highway Patrol officers lost their lives in a
fierce gun battle on April 6, 1970. But we wanted to stay....read more
A Look at Kidnapping through the Lens of Protective Intelligence
Looking at the world from a protective-intelligence
perspective, the theme for the past week has not been improvised
explosive devices or potential mass-casualty attacks. While there have
been suicide bombings in Afghanistan, alleged threats to the World Cup
and seemingly endless post-mortem discussions of the failed May 1 Times
Square attack, one recurring and under-reported theme in a number of
regions around the world has been kidnapping.
For example, in Heidenheim, Germany, Maria Boegerl, the wife of
German banker Thomas Boegerl, was reportedly kidnapped from her home May
12. The kidnappers issued a ransom demand to the family and an amount
was agreed upon. Mr. Boegerl placed the ransom payment at the arranged
location, but the kidnappers never picked up the money (perhaps
suspecting or detecting police involvement). The family has lost contact
with the kidnappers, and fear for Mrs. Boegerl’s fate has caused German
authorities to launch a massive search operation, which has included
hundreds of searchers along with dogs, helicopters and divers.
Two days after the Boegerl kidnapping, al Qaeda in the Islamic
Maghreb (AQIM) posted a message on the Internet claiming to have custody
of....read more
Video: Officer attacked at Ohio police station
ELYRIA, Ohio — Cameras were rolling inside the Elyria Police Station
early Sunday morning, as a Cleveland man attacked a police officer.
Videotape obtained by Fox 8 News shows 29-year-old Anthony Wayne
Thomas jumping the counter in the station's booking area and hitting
Officer Bill Witt with a flurry of punches.
Witt's fellow officers in other sections of the station were unaware that he was in the...read more
Homicide BOMBERS
Tactics for first-responding officers
The following information, while not all-inclusive,
highlights issues law enforcement officers face when confronting a
homicide bomber. Much of this information has been written about and
examined at various levels, but I'll focus on first-responding officers.
As police officers, we approach potential threats at all times, but a
police officer making an approach to a suspected suicide or homicide
bomber may trigger the response you want to avoid. When the threat
potential exists based on your reasonable belief or information received
from citizens/witnesses, the following tactical issues may spell the
difference between...read more
Candidates, police wrestle with security concerns
As 2012 draws near, officers have to navigate a delicate balance between protection and accessibility
MINNEAPOLIS — When a prankster dumped a box of
glittering confetti in Newt Gingrich's lap at a book-signing, the
presidential candidate brushed off the stunt with a smile and quipped
that it was "nice to live in a free country."
But the man's easy access to Gingrich raises questions about security
on the campaign trail, particularly in the early months before the
Secret Service begins guarding candidates. And the first events of the
2012 campaign are playing out just a few months after the shooting of
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
For White House hopefuls, security is always a...read more
The Bin Laden Operation: Tapping Human Intelligence
Since May 2, when U.S. special operations forces crossed
the Afghan-Pakistani border and killed Osama bin Laden, international
media have covered the raid from virtually every angle. The United
States and Pakistan have also squared off over the U.S. violation of
Pakistan’s sovereign territory and Pakistan’s possible complicity in
hiding the al Qaeda leader. All this surface-level discussion, however,
largely ignores almost 10 years of intelligence development in the hunt
for bin Laden.
While the cross-border nighttime raid deep into Pakistan was a daring
and daunting operation, the work to find the target — one person out of
180 million in a country full of insurgent groups and a population
hostile to American activities on its soil — was a far greater
challenge. For the other side, the challenge of hiding the world’s most
wanted man from the world’s most funded intelligence apparatus created a
clandestine shell game that probably involved current or former
Pakistani intelligence officers as well as competing intelligence
services. The details of this struggle will likely remain classified for
decades.
Examining the hunt for bin Laden is also difficult, mainly because of
the sensitivity of the mission and the possibility that some of the
public information now available could be disinformation intended to...read more
The Mental Edge: Resilience
Tough times don't last—tough people do.
Talk about mindset and the mental edge, and you’ll
usually get references to the late Col. Jeff Cooper’s Awareness Color
Code or his Principle of Personal Defense. These are sound concepts and
recommendations that still hold true today, but there’s more to what’s
required for today’s law enforcement street warriors.
Times are tough my brothers and sisters in blue. Whether you patrol
urban or suburban streets, or in a large city or a small town, it makes
no difference. Officer fatalities are up: Today’s numbers from the
National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund indicate an increase
of...read more