Newsletter February 2008
in this issue
Understanding the Spectrum of Tactical Threats to Schools
Too Many Choices - Creating Frustration in Interrogation
10 Common Indicators for Highway Drug Interdiction
Top Ten

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        By John Giduck

          reprinted from Swat Digest



The officer can feel the adrenaline racing through his veins at the same time his patrol car races toward the school, lights and sirens slicing the previously peaceful morning. The dispatcher had struggled to keep her voice steady, telling him they were receiving numerous reports of gunfire in the hallways, of children lying in pools of blood.

The young cop runs his response through his head, trying to calm himself, ready himself for battle. He had been well schooled in Active Shooter protocols. But what would he confront? What must he be ready for, and did his training adequately prepare him for the broad spectrum of possible tactical threats to the children he swore to protect?

Make no mistake, America's schools are under siege. But few realize the entire spectrum of extreme tactical threats that they face, and that our law enforcement officers must be prepared to respond to. Simply teaching schools to "lock down" in response to every threat is insufficient. As well, the tactical spectrum is so wide that merely offering our rescuers the two options of going in (Active Shooter), or holding and securing (Stable Barricade Scenario) are just as insufficient. As with any problem, the key to not only preparing for it, but resolving it when confronted, is knowledge. With this knowledge comes the recognition that all three levels of
LE-school response - SROs, patrol and SWAT - must develop joint tactics, as they will all be involved. Anyone with a terrorist mindset understands the value of attacking kids in schools. Whether our own homegrown child shooters, adults or trained al Qaeda terrorists, they all understand that nothing brings more fame, or devastates a community and a nation better, than the killing of its children.

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By Stan Walters
 

If given the time, we could probably come up with a number of reasons a suspect won't confess, a hostile witness won't cooperate or why the victim won't disclose. If we then reviewed our "list" objectively we might find that we have placed a large portion of the blame on our subject and were partially if not fully blind to any problems we may have created. It's time to give ourselves and our subject a break. The impasse may in fact have been created because of there being too many choices to be made by us and our subject.
 

All too often when entering an interview room, we like to go in "armed to the teeth" with information and facts. Being fully loaded with evidence is certainly not a bad thing but how we choose to present that information can be a handicap for the interviewer as well as the subject. With so many choices to make about what topics to address, how to address them, what order and more, we get caught up in the "planning" and can bungle the "presentation." Because we have too many choices to make we may see a successful interview as a long and difficult campaign with no assurance of success and even a higher probability of early failure. To overcome this problem, try dealing with and presenting only one issue at a time and strive to win small battles and not the whole "war" with one big "atomic" question that tries to incorporate multiple issues. You'll find you'll be able to focus more on your subject, miss fewer of the important responses and increase your chances of overall success.

 

 
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By Andrew Hawkes, Author of Secrets of Successful Highway Drug Interdiction

In today's drug smuggling world, highway drug traffickers are constantly attempting to think of new an innovative ways to conceal their contraband from law enforcement.  Little do they realize that the same methods they come up with have been being used for decades by their predecessors.  Through thousands of narcotic interdiction arrests by skilled interdiction officers all over the country, we have learned many of these traits and characteristics.  Below, I have outlined ten popular techniques that highway drug traffickers attempt to use in hopes that they will successfully get their dope to their destination.   By familiarizing yourself with some of these tips, you too can increase your interdiction success.  Keep in mind you must always have probable cause to stop a vehicle.

  1. MASKING ODORS.  We have all heard of highway drug smugglers attempting to use large amounts of air fresheners in their vehicles.  Not only can you look at for the famous "Christmas Tree" air fresheners hanging from the rear view mirror and other places in the vehicle, but you can also be aware of several other tactics that you may not have picked up on in the past.  For example, do you notice several bottles of cologne or perfume in the car, and have they recently been sprayed prior or during your traffic stop of the vehicle? Is there a large bag of scented pipe tobacco, opened, laying in the vehicle but you notice the driver is smoking a cigarette?  Or maybe you find it odd that as soon as you stop the car, the driver lights up a cigarette immediately, filling the car with smoke, but has no desire to roll down the windows?  These are all examples of masking the odor on the surface of the stop.  Masking odors placed directly onto packages of contraband can include animal urine, cayenne pepper, mustard, animal blood, oil and just about anything they feel may frighten off a drug canine or further mask the odor of contraband.
Top Ten Ways To Tell Your Probationer Is Not Cutting It:
  1. Calls everyone "Clown face".
  2. Always brings his mother to work.
  3. Constantly leaves his gun in the restroom.
  4. Writes reports in Latin.
  5. Asks if he can shoot someone tonight.
  6. Calls you "dude".
  7. Sticks his finger out the window and yells "Bang Bang" at pedestrians.
  8. Nose picker.
  9. Has environmental "concerns" about using deodorant.
  10. Mentions that he has a thirteen year old girlfriend.

 

What do the SSI TIPS (Terrorism Information Prevention Systems) hope to accomplish?

As a member of Law Enforcement you should help to bring the public into line with the goal of public safety. A number of organizations have helped us provide the following tips:

Deploying assets: People and supplies getting into position to commit the act. This is a person's last chance to alert authorities before the terrorist act occurs. Look for people loading up vehicles with weaponry/explosives, etc, and/or parking that vehicle somewhere, or people in uniforms (who don't look right) approaching an installation or getting into a vehicle, or people who seem out of place standing by at a certain location as if waiting for something to happen.


One fairly good example of this is the attack on the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. When the explosives-laden truck pulled up to the fence line (which was the "deploying assets" step) and the driver jumped out and ran away, that was seen by a spotter on the roof of the dormitory, who recognized this as suspicious activity. He then sprinted down stairs and began pounding on doors, rousting people out of bed and getting them out of the building. Because of that, he saved many, many lives, and it's all because he recognized the "deploying assets" element.


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