By Cindy Von Quednow
Ventura County Star
In a drill that could have been ripped from this week’s headlines, authorities pretended a Filipino terrorist group had joined with a Mexican cartel to bring chemical weapons and drugs to Ventura County.
After chemicals leaked and contaminated the smuggling boat, several maritime and law enforcement agencies responded. Those on board were decontaminated and then arrested.
Local and federal agencies are conducting three days of training this week in Ventura County focused on merging counterterrorism and humanitarian efforts and evaluating new technologies. They invited the media Wednesday to the Port of Hueneme to take a look.
“We live in a post-9/11 world. The bad guys are getting smarter, so we need to get smarter,” said Scott Brewer, deputy director for operations at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, which coordinated the maritime security exercise.
“You’ll never replace the guys in the field with the boots on ... but what we want to do is arm those guys with every tool they can have that will give them an advantage against the bad guys.”
The Coastal Trident 2012 exercise was planned long before this week’s rash of drug-smuggling incidents. Two people and nearly a ton of marijuana were seized Monday from a disabled boat off the Oxnard coast, and 20 others were arrested with 2 tons of pot being found Tuesday on a beach near Point Mugu State Park, officials said.
Wednesday’s scenario took place three miles off the coast near the Ventura-Los Angeles county border and the site of Tuesday’s bust.
“If we would have had this event a few hours earlier, this may not have been a Coastal Trident exercise but a Coastal Trident operation,” said Kathleen Sheehan, Port Hueneme’s police chief.
Authorities say Mexican smugglers who use boats are landing farther north after an increase in border security.
Sheehan highlighted the importance of cooperation among all the agencies involved, which included the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Department of Defense and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“We need every partner in this room,” she said. “We do a lot with a little, and the way we can do a lot with a little is with all of these departments.”
A Coast Guard cutter, several boats from law enforcement agencies in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, two helicopters, hazardous-materials and dive teams, and a bomb squad all responded Wednesday to the simulated smuggling boat.
Participants tested new checkpoint technologies that included facial recognition Tuesday. The exercise concludes today with emergency operations center training.
Dennis Siervo, a senior superintendent for the Philippine National Police, was invited and said his country will test and use the technologies this summer.
“We’re hoping the technology will assist us in the combat against international terrorism, counterinsurgency and organized criminal groups in our country,” he said. “We want to reconcile this and improve it to work in other countries in the South Asian region, not only in the Philippines.”
Copyright 2012 Ventura County Star