Editor’s Note: Police1 recently launched a new series, “First Person,” where P1 columnists and members candidly share their own unique cop’s-eye-view of the world, from personal insights on issues confronting cops today to observations and advice on living life behind the thin blue line. This week’s feature is from Al Baker, Al Baker, a retired NYPD ESU Lieutenant who is also now the President and Founder of Baker Batshield. Do you want to share your own perspective with other P1 Members? Send us an E-mail with your short article.
By Al Baker, NYPD (retired) Lt., ESU
President, Baker Batshield, Inc.
As we approach the 10-year anniversary next week of the killing spree of two high school students in suburban Columbine, Colorado, consider the re-engineering to educational facilities following that event (and their copy-cat follow-ons). Consider the extent of fear and panic caused by the murderous rampage of two individuals known as The [Washington, DC] Beltway Snipers a few years ago. Consider the universal re-structure of airline travel in the United States since the heretofore unthinkable terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. Consider the world-wide focus last November of the four day siege in Mumbai, India—a well choreographed terror plot, in a major population and financial capital—with multiple targets of opportunity—carried out with one major common denominator: simultaneousness.
The differences as well as the similarities of these four major, security-influencing events may be instructive as to preparedness for future terrorism, readiness in terms of first responder training, equipment and protocols. But perhaps the more telling of lessons learned can be observed in the most significant nuance: simultaneousness.
Coincidence connotes an accidental feature, but simultaneous is a far more treacherous motive when one considers connotations of concurrence, instantaneous, synchronized, or immediate.
When federal law enforcement agents escorted a shackled Ramzi Yousef back to New York, the airliner they occupied coincidentally crossed the air space of the still standing Word Trade Center. Reports have read that the captured terrorist boasted of a return to complete the job and take the towers down for good. We probably should have taken that promise more seriously.
And since that time, I think it’s fair to say that we now possess a clearer focus on the nature, cunning and patience of this insidious enemy and their franchised allies, sympathizers and conspirators. We now know they want sensationalism. We also know that they are willing to wait because we, the guardians against chaos, must be effective every time—our enemy only needs to be successful once. And now, based on the patterns of past terrorist behavior, current status, and our enemy’s insatiable appetite for sensation, I submit that simultaneousness represents our next best challenge for readiness.
What to do?
First, based on the anecdotal progression outlined here, we really must avoid a posture of comparative analysis. Such was implicit in Secretary of Homeland Security Chertoff’s remarks last December:
Chertoff Discusses American Response to Armed Attacks
By Cam Simpson, The Wall Street Journal
Wednesday, December 3, 2008NEW YORK — The homeland security chief noted that mass violence from armed men has been a fact of life in the U.S. for decades, whether the killers are crazed loners, students or ideological extremists. “Let’s remember we have lived in this country with people who pick up guns and kill other people for as long as I remember, and probably for decades before that,” Mr. Chertoff said. “You’re not going to prevent that from happening 100 percent.”
To be fair, Mr. Chertoff’s task is unenviable and no doubt impossible for complete effectiveness and vision. I am however, concerned that my cop instinct is screaming out that the next major terrorist event to strike the United States homeland will not be some predictable, repetitive, outburst of violence gleaned from the history of domestic terror, but will be creative, innovative, cunning, and steeped in the new fanatical trend known as simultaneousness. I suggest that the next strike will not fit cookie-cutter format, but will more approximate the: “Which one of these is not like the other?” mold.
From a terrorist’s, bang-for-the-buck mentality, the multiplier effect is the means to the greater end, which is of course, fear, panic, economic instability, social calamity, and eventual political domination. One times one equals one; one times many equals countless.
The Beltway Sniper had parents driving their kids to schools and scores of motorists opting for the full-serve island at gasoline filling stations. Just imagine a dozen suburban schools going to lockdown at precisely 9 AM on any given Wednesday.
Simultaneousness!
Second, professional football calls it strength and conditioning. They hire coaches for just that focus. Professional law enforcement needs to take a page out of their playbook.
Rapid deployment preparedness for singular events has grown exponentially among domestic law enforcement prerogatives—for all intents and purposes, it is the best thing that has happened in the area of life and safety in America in at least two decades. We are finally beginning to say to our first responders: ‘never mind setting up a perimeter and waiting for special teams, but deploy rapidly and take immediate action.’
But now, although much progress has been made, we need to raise our sights higher and make ready to deal with multiple, simultaneous events. In so doing, we need to involve the target institutions themselves in the drills. Mumbai, India reminds us that multiple, simultaneous attacks conducted by disparate means and methods represents a new form of sensationalism for the evil doers. Rapid deployment advances within law enforcement and school safety teams must certainly stay on track for advancing skill sets but as we witnessed in India last year, the venues themselves proved most vulnerable and certainly more daunting for tactical professionals to regain control.
Third, the challenge to American security objectives is to both harden our liabilities while protecting our long cherished freedoms.
Training and equipping our first responders will certainly enhance our strength and conditioning but additionally, moving aggressively and proactively into likely target environments and conducting multiple scenario-intensive training exercises, in tandem with institutional stewards, will go far in discouraging the terrorists.
We need to go to the hotels, the stadiums, the churches, the schools, and the transportation hubs and carry out reality-based simulations.
We can never say “we’re there” when it comes to a cultural, diabolical obsession to destroy us. We must be constantly aware of our enemies’ murderous intentions. From a good street cop’s point of view, the only advantages that we have going for us when we get to a killing prone scene is the confidence in ourselves, our equipment, and our training, which in turn determines the levels of our victories.
When you come right down to it, whether it’s single or simultaneous events, we each put our duty trousers on one leg at a time —the extent to which we prepare, equip and train each independent first responder unit will determine our ability to defeat the attackers simultaneously—one siege at a time. Terrorists are cowards by nature, in that they only prey upon the innocent and the defenseless—when confronted by competent forces for freedom, they typically falter.
