When the news broke about the dual bombing at the Boston Marathon, it was “day one” of ILEETA and I was standing in the lobby of the Westin, speaking with a couple of police trainers.
We all immediately and simultaneously checked our phones for news, called somebody we knew, and resumed the conversation with our newly-found “intel from the home office” in hand.
During breaks throughout the conference this behavior was repeatedly evident — 1.) get the latest OSI on your phone, 2.) check with your contacts, 3.) resume what you were doing.
People who attend the annual ILEETA conference are some of the most dialed-in individuals in law enforcement, so as you can imagine, at every new turn of events we all basically knew the same stuff at the same time.
However, in conversation about the bombings a couple days after the attacks (I think it was Wednesday, but it could have been Thursday morning) I made reference to something about mass-arson attacks as described in the latest special edition issue of Inspire Magazine.
The guy I was talking with looked at me like I had three heads.
“You know about Inspire Magazine, right?”
“No.”
I was dumbfounded.
Four decades ago — when “the terrorists” attacking here in the United States were groups like Black Liberation Army, FALN, Symbionese Liberation Army, Weathermen Underground, and that sort — the Anarchists Cookbook was basically required reading for both the abovementioned bad guys and the coppers who were chasing them down.
Today, it’s pretty much the entire open-source-jihad Internet (that’s another matter altogether), but the go-to textbook is Inspire Magazine.
The person I reference above is — without a shadow of a doubt — smarter than me by a wide margin.
But he didn’t know about Inspire.
My point is this: Don’t trust that someone in your agency is going to be responsible for properly maintaining the organizational knowledge base about the things would-be terrorists are teaching each other. If you’re lucky, someone is doing that, but if you’re like me, you’re a “trust but verify” type of individual.
If you’re reading the tactical tips here on Police1 you’ve already proven you’re a cop who is thirsty for new knowledge.
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