By Joe Autera
Interesting read, particularly the last sentence of the second paragraph “…where among other methods they were taught to kill people traveling inside vehicles”.
While there are some within the EP field who are quick to debate the value of some older case studies (Herrhausen, Schleyer, Moro) its worth noting that those attacks where planned and conducted by adversaries who had prior training in how to kill people in moving vehicles and that is precisely what they were able to do, despite the fact that each of those targets had robust protection. Based in some part on this article one could make the clichéd, but no less valid, argument that to ignore history is to repeat it.
Now that is not to say that every Executive Protection professional should be concerned, every single day, about an attack against their principal while he or she is in a vehicle. While Gavin DeBecker, Tom Taylor and Jeff Marquart did an excellent job at articulating and quantifying the prevalence of those type of risks in their book “Just 2 Seconds”, there are those in the profession who are fortunate enough, either by virtue of the collective risk/threats their principals face or the locales they travel to, that rarely if ever have to be concerned about such an eventuality. However, there are those in the Executive Protection realm, by virtue of the higher risk/threat profile of their principal and/or the locales they travel to, that must be concerned with these sorts of threat on a frequent and ongoing basis.
Additionally, when coupled the crux of the article – which is the cross border reach of this particular group – the transient and expansive nature of the types of actions these groups are trained to conduct, is cause for concern. While the threat may currently be somewhat confined to rival gangs and others involved in the drug trade in many respects, one need only look to the evolution of the kidnapping threat in Colombia, Peru, Venezuela years ago, and more recently in Central Mexico to see a pattern whereby the threat of being targeted while in one’s vehicle has the potential to rapidly transition from one that is isolated to a specific segment of the population (criminal organizations and their associates), to one that impacts t broader segments of the general population; particularly high profile, affluent citizens ranging from and corporate executives to celebrities and their family members.
Everyone knows that 80 % of attacks occur when you are mobile, but teams that motorcade the same route each day (go figure) become complacent. Couple years ago I received a cell phone call that we all dread. While working a detail in central Mexico we almost lost a well trained, high risk team due to this dangerous situation. It wasn’t that the team wasn’t properly trained or tactically sound, they were, but they became complacent because on several trips, motorcade movement went smooth, maybe too smooth, almost boring. Then they broke their own rules and it almost cost them their lives!
A team member was kidnapped and armored vehicle stolen in the attack that happened in seconds (not minutes or hours), extremely fortunate that the team member was released safe after only a few days, but it goes to show that you have to bring your A game everyday!