Just like building a house or repairing a car the right tools often make the job significantly easier. While agents and operators possess varying skills levels your tools are designed to help enhance your operational capabilities and maximize your efficiency. Below is a selection of commonly used tools of the trade, which can help you, become more efficient in conducting your business. They are listed in alphabetical order and not tactical importance. Just as the situation should dictates your tactics, your individual skills, threat level, detail and environment should also help dictate your tools. It is not expected that an agent would carry all of the tools listed below on every detail, but ideally the ones which best compliment the assignment.
Body Armor – sometimes the shield is more important than the sword. It is a must have for protection specialists. It is more important to not get you or your client shot, than it is to shoot, shooting is extra credit. Personal armor is designed to absorb the impact from handguns, some shotgun projectiles and shrapnel from explosions. All body armor is not created equal so please do your research. Metal or ceramic plates can be used with a soft vest, to provide additional protection from rifle rounds. Soft vests are commonly worn by protection specialists and law enforcement whereas hard-plate reinforced vests are mainly worn by combat soldiers, police tactical units, and other high risk protection teams. Typically the slimmer the profile and lighter the weight the more expensive the vest will be. Understand your vests rating capabilities – Level 1 through Level 3. Most vests will provide minimal assistance against a knife slash, but almost no assistance against a stab or puncture. There are some very good high tech vests which are stab resistant however they are priced accordingly. Buy the best vest your budget can afford and upgrade as soon as practically possible.
Communications – in some cases a two way radio is a great communication tool in other cases a cell phone with a good Bluetooth ear piece is a better low profile communication option. As the public is use to seeing professionals chatting on their cell phones. Make sure if your cell phone or your PDA is your primary communication tool, make sure your cellular provider is as good as the rest of your equipment. It doesn’t do you any good to have high tech phone or PDA and a low tech provider. Make sure whether using a two way radio or cell phone your ear piece has good noise reduction capabilities. During your advance work make sure your communications will work in the region you are traveling or in the event facility. If working with a team, make sure you have hand signals in the event you lose verbal communications capabilities.
Credentials – one day someone is going to ask you to present them. Don’t get yourself in legal trouble by working without the proper credentials. Make sure you understand the carry and use of force laws in the states or countries you work in or will be traveling too. Remember our job is to reduce risks and deal with threats. Don’t create undue risks to yourself or your client. Working without the proper credentials can land you in jail and get both you and your client sued.
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A U.S. regulator charged three former directors of a military contractor with involvement in a massive accounting fraud, after a jury had convicted the company’s founder of orchestrating the $190 million scheme.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accused Jerome Krantz, Cary Chasin and Gary Nadelman of being “willfully blind to numerous red flags” of fraud at DHB Industries Inc, a body armor maker now known as Point Blank Solutions Inc .
In a complaint filed in a Florida federal court, the SEC said these defendants were outside directors who served on DHB’s audit committee from at least 2003 to 2005.
It said their lack of oversight allowed senior management to manipulate results, and to funnel millions of dollars to DHB’s founder and chief executive, David Brooks, to pay for luxury cars, costly vacations, art and prostitution services.
“This massive accounting fraud permeated throughout an entire company,” Eric Bustillo, director of the SEC regional office in Miami, said in a statement. “As the fraud swirled around them, Krantz, Chasin and Nadelman ignored the obvious.”
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Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed legislation into law aimed at prohibiting violent felons from possessing body armor such as bulletproof vests.
The bill, known as SB 408, was sponsored by Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Pacoima.
“Public safety is absolutely my No. 1 priority, which is why I signed SB 408 today,” Schwarzenegger said Wednesday in a prepared statement. “Violent felons wearing body armor pose a dangerous threat to our communities and especially to our men and women in law enforcement. I’m proud to sign this legislation and to continue working with the legislature to protect Californians.”
Padilla said there is an urgent need for the law after recent altercations between felons wearing body armor and law enforcement.
On Jan. 20, an armed man suspected of killing eight people in Virginia was wearing a bulletproof vest when he was apprehended by police. On March 19, a parolee with 19 arrests and four convictions was found wearing body armor after a high-speed chase in Los Angeles.
“I am proud that SB 408 won legislative support and was signed into law in less than five months, and I appreciate the governor’s support of this measure,” Padilla said in a statement. “This bill shows that the legislature is serious about public safety.”
San Benito County Sheriff and California State Sheriff’s Association President Curtis Hill was among several law enforcement officials present as the governor signed the bill.
An Oklahoma man faces felony charges he not only posed as an ex-German police officer but befriended a captain and trained with officers, police said.
Mazier Golchehr, 27, of Purcell allegedly convinced Oklahoma City police he was a former German police officer and a federal agent and was allowed to train alongside police officers, KOCO-TV in Oklahoma City reported Tuesday.
Golchehr was arrested and charged Wednesday with possession of a sawed-off shotgun and two felony charges pertaining to body armor, KOCO-TV reported.
Capt. Patrick Stewart of the Oklahoma City Police said the department is investigating how Golchehr allegedly tricked police officers and to what kind of information Golchehr might have had access.
The captain with whom Golchehr associated is on administrative leave, police said.
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A police advocacy group has criticized an appeals court judgment last week overturning a law that prevented violent felons from owning body armor, saying the ruling will put officers and the public in danger.
The decade-old ban was enacted after the 1997 North Hollywood shootout, a confrontation between police and two heavily armored bank robbers that injured officers and civilians. The state Legislature passed the ban in 1998 as a measure to protect police.
Thursday’s ruling by the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles overturned the state law, saying it was unconstitutional because the definition of body armor was too vague.
“It just makes this job that much more dangerous,” said Paul Weber, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League union for LAPD officers.
“It’s going to make criminals more bold and more likely to shoot it out with the police.”
The challenge to the body armor ban stemmed from the Los Angeles Police Department’s 2007 arrest of Ethan Saleem, a parolee who had been convicted of voluntary manslaughter.
Saleem was arrested when police noticed that he was wearing a 10-pound, bulletproof vest underneath his shirt, according to court records.
“Certainly Saleem wasn’t wearing body armor because he was going to a job interview or going on a date,” the union said in a statement.
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The stated reason for the body armour law is to curb the number of gangsters parading around B.C. in the gear.
They like to strut around flaunting their supposed immunity from the law. They also like to flaunt their supposed immunity to bullets. Apparently there’s a certain bad-boy cachet when you’re covered in Kevlar.
But the information and privacy commission has raised a sidelight on the other equally important aim of the new law.
The system set up to regulate body armour could serve as a useful intelligence-gathering process.
The law sets up a registry that will track any and all dealings of individuals interested in buying or selling body armour. And there are no restrictions on sharing that information around with other authorities.
Meaning any police force with an interest in body armour — the integrated gang task force comes to mind — could have free access to the new registry that will be created to keep track of body armour.
If the system works as advertised, gangsters will be denied body armo
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recent survey indicates that many security professionals support the idea of regulating the sale, possession and use of body armour if it means improved on-the-job security
