Distinguished Toastmaster
BUSINESS & BRANDING COACH . LIFE & LEADERSHIP STRATEGIST MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER SERVING ENTREPRENEURS &
MAIN STREET
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WHAT TO DEMAND OF RESPONDERS POST PARIS (c) Carrie Devorah :
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The week before the concurrent bombings of Paris2 responders a local saw something strange on a Sunday in Virginia. They saw a foreign man taking photos of Federal and media buildings. The photos were not of the building sign. The buildings are unmarked. The photos were not of a 2nd party. They were alone. The streets were pretty much empty.

Photos taken in to the building dark glass windows on a weekend/off hour. Photos taken of building top quadrants.

Cops were called. The office wasted 15 minutes driving around ‘looking’ for the man. The tipster had told the police emergency receptionist they had taken photos of the strange Federal building photographer. The tipster watched as the cop drove past them waving. Catching the cop at the corner the officer said, “I have covered these streets for 26 years.”

I was active in building the 1st discrete site crime analysis lab on a college campus on the continent.

I can explain intel and cops simply:
  • During the ensuing search, someone looked at one of the Parisian terrorists passports and let him go

  • The terrorist bought a ticket to the event

  • Navy Yards was an inside job by a co-worker

  • Timothy McVeigh was not on a terror watch list

  • 1 asap to the caller ask if have photos 2nd to the streets




Terrorists like travellers plan in advance. Like all good business people, their business being terrorism, you can expect they too use planagrams, infografics and google calendars set for coordinated meetups on line, and off, like at halls and stadiums and coming to a locale near you, maybe..... 

Most likely multiple terrorists bought tickets to the event, carrying in, each, a piece, unidentifiable on its own. There is always the Russian airplane model of an inside job. Lets be real, do we ever truly know who people are or will we ever know when they flip. As someone who covered the press conference and photographed the 6 blonde women partners to men who participated in 9-11’s planning and/or attack, no, you would never know these women were truly embedded with the enemy

Here are rules each agency, local, state and federal must know:
  • Ignore NO lead

  • Don’t judge a tip by the deliverer

  • Dispatch 2 officers or teams to a suspected terrorism tipster call, 1 to the streets, the other to the tipster, when the tipster self identifies and says "I HAVE PHOTOS. Take possession of that image in to the system and share the hell out of it FAST

  • Everything stored online will potentially be lost or unreachable possibly before, possibly during and after the crisis. Are you willing to risk losing your intel? The Russians have returned to pencil and paper. Take their lead

  • Officers must listen not rebut with how well they know the streets. The mantra is See Something Say Something. Tip sources are extra eyes and boots on the ground

  • Plan your department’s response team. The attitude of that Virginia officer rebuffed the tipster who knew their data was now in the database and the officer knows where the tipster lives. Officers are people too. Lead show know which officer is a potential firecracker themselves and position them accordingly, not in direct contact with the public

  •  Keep the media back. Media are no longer what they used to be. Activists are now media securing press credentials from local, state and federal agencies, too. There are always the signs that tip who is credible or not. A quick aide is knowing your local media. They may have better eyes to let you know which person is unfamiliar, sort of like the pyromaniac who sticks around to watch their fire burn

  • Wand the wounded. Take a lesson from Middle Eastern cultures too familiar with bomb attacks- wand the wounded possibly penetrated with metal shards point of entries invisible to the naked eye. Shards may be dipped in disease. Skin cuts not visible. Tier the injured, sadly





Start building ‘piles’ of data

Start building an onwall offline data base version of memory game. Stores like CVS and Rite Aids do have a good grip on petty thieves. Astute store managers keep photos
If need be copy data, mark as duplicate and put in to a 2nd or 3rd pile/stack to build profile of the situation

Establish 1 quarterback the other ‘separation of church & state’ agency enforcement, asap (ie there are different responders for the street, the sidewalk the private property, the state and the federal buildings. Have that staffer share data. The risk of sharing data online is the ‘enemy’ is online too. Keep in mind, online is a big part of your security problem.

Teach your officers the Disney model-
  • Send all officers out with pencil and paper and pencil sharpner
  • go offline
  • buddy up,
  • there is no profiling, the terrorist may be the blonde hottie not the person on the terror watch list
  • pick a rendezvous spot and time to circle back to like clockwork
  • routine times circle back to home base
  • Have a terrorism historian. Criminals and terrorists are people too. The practice and improve just like you practice to improve in walking, running and doing your job. The historian will pretty much only learn online local histories. Editors focus on local news, if that.

Google sets up borders preventing areas of search to be found, depressing rankings of data being looked for, even making data go away. There is a way to pull data like the concurrent rampage of self emoliations in Europe outside the French embassies in 2003. Of course, I am not going to tell you here, online.

I know about the emoliations. I was sent by my editor to pass the French embassy after covering Putin reviewing the Troops. It didn’t make the news here

The emoliations you most likely never heard of? I was there. My editor called me to leave the palace on the road passing the French embassy after I was finished covering Putin reviewing the Troops. The concurrent emoliations didn’t make the news here in DC. One emoliation, maybe, made the news back in Ottawa, Canada. She, Nedra, was studying abroad. Another story, another day….

ps
Get to know your local responders, too. Your surviving is a partnership