Virtually every study conducted over the last forty years regarding threats to, and attacks against, high profile individuals has shown that:
- Attacks against high profile individuals (corporate executives, high net worth family members, government and military officials) are inevitably preceeded by some form of surveillance.
- The overwhelming majority of attacks, as well as unwanted approaches, occur while the intended target is in or around their vehicle.
The most effective executive protection professionals recognize these two important facts and take the steps necessary to ensure they have the capability to:
- Recognize the indicators & warning signs of a potential attack
- Respond appropriately to potential threats and other emergency situations while behind the wheel or riding in the vehicle with their principal.
Developing and sustaining these critical capabilities requires training, training…and, in some cases, more training. However, as with most EP-related skills, successfully recognizing potential threats and responding to behind-the-wheel emergencies is not simply a question of how much training one undergoes, but whether or not that training is both effective and applicable to the real world challenges of executive protection.
Given the lessons learned from literally hundreds of attacks and what’s at stake if an attack occurs, it stands to reason that protection professionals should periodically assess their ability to detect pre-incident surveillance and respond to behind-the-wheel emergencies. The very first step in objectively assessing these critical capabilities is to ask yourself (or your people) some basic questions pertaining to surveillance detection and security driving. For instance, those questions might include:
- What are the four key elements of a successful attack? Of these four which is the most critical andthe easiest to counter?
- What is the most common form of surveillance used in planning attacks against high profile individuals?
- When and where is the adversary most likely to conduct surveillance, leading right up to the moment of the attack?
- How much time will it take you to recognize and react to a behind the wheel emergency – such as a potential accident or a deliberate attempt to stop the principal’s vehicle?
- What are the two most common warning signs that a vehicle is at or near its limits when performing an evasive manuever?
- What happens to your field of vision as vehicle speed increases from 40 to 50 or 60 mph? What can you do to overcome those effects?
The answers to these questions may very well mean the difference between recognizing and responding to a potential threat and having to deal with the aftermath of a headline grabbing attack. The fewer questions that can be answered with confidence, the greater the advantage an adversary has in planning and executing an attack.
Past and recent history shows that the answers to these and other equally important questions can only be found in surveillance detection training, which encourages the protection professional to assess the risks, threats and vulnerabilities of their principal from the attacker’s perspective, and driver training which accurately replicates real world scenarios and incorporates human factors such as reaction time and stress while holding students to an objective performance standard.
Read more information about surveillance detection training.
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