Just 2 Seconds (17 page)

If you've ever seen a protected person during a public appearance and thought, "Anyone can walk right up to him," or "The guards aren't close enough," or "They don't look alert," or "They'd have no way out in an emergency," you were assessing who held the ACE.

TOP (Tactical Observation Post)

It is still hours from when Ronnie Kempler will appear on the TV news all over Israel. He has climbed onto a rooftop and is looking for the position that will give him the most direct view when Prime Minister Rabin traverses the plaza below. Kempler can see everything from up here, including dozens of security people, but he's fairly certain they haven't seen him. He doesn't want their attention -- not yet anyway.

Peering intently through the eyepiece, Kempler tracks each step the Prime Minister takes through the crowd below. Kempler patiently keeps him in view right up until two quick, fatal shots are fired into the Prime Minister.

But Ronnie Kempler was not the assassin. He was one of thousands of ordinary citizens who came to Tel Aviv that day to see Prime Minister Rabin speak at a rally. His initial plan was to take some interesting home video of his nation's famous leader, but he ended up also taking video of his nation's most famous assassin, Yigal Amir. It turns out that Kempler recorded Amir's waiting, stalking, approaching, Moment of Commitment, and his attack.

Amir was one among a crowd of thousands that could be seen from the rooftop, so why did Kempler, an accountant, successfully identify his pre-attack behaviors which many of the professional bodyguards missed? Kempler says he had "the feeling" that something bad was about to happen. His feeling -- his intuition -- was right.

Kempler saw aspects of Amir's behavior that Amir had been able to conceal from people on the ground. That's because Kempler had a vantage point others did not. He had what amounted to a Tactical Observation Post, what our firm calls "TOP."

Compendium cases that could have benefited from TOP:
JFK #4
,
Wallace #13
,
Reagan #25
,
Marcos #79
,
Pope #105
,
Sadat #106
,
Galan #145
,
Gandhi #177
,
Seles #213
,
Colosio #229
,
Rabin #251
,
Djindjic #383
,
Park Chung Hee #470
, for a few examples.

Photo from the Ronald Reagan Library

For an example, there was an excellent TOP post that could have been occupied during the Hinckley attack, directly above the crowd closest to the President (photo).

We know that attackers and would-be attackers often display
observable
pre-attack behaviors before their Moment of Commitment, even though they seek to conceal their intent. Though they are sensitive to being watched by security personnel around a public appearance site, they, like most people, are not sensitive to being observed from above. Accordingly, they might adjust a weapon under their clothing, or temporarily move to an area they believe is out of view, or pace back and forth, or check different exits around a hotel, looking for ways to encounter the target. The protector handling the TOP post is dedicated to observing all the people in the protectee's environment. The mission is in several ways similar to that of a counter-sniper, except that a protector on a TOP post need not be prepared to shoot at anyone, and need not even be armed. His responsibility is simply to watch for behaviors that arouse suspicion or concern, and communicate the details to protectors on the ground. It might be that the exit route is blocked by traffic, or that a crowd is forming around the corner. Or, as in the case of Amir, someone appears to be lying in wait. Whatever information the TOP protector provides can be assessed or addressed by those on the ground.

TOP protectors need radio communication, of course, and can also benefit from having binoculars, a digital video camera, and a laser rangefinder to determine distances (available for a few hundred dollars). A protector with a view from above can help those on the ground reach the Moment of Recognition sooner than they might have otherwise -- and even a second sooner can make the decisive difference to safety.

Briefing the TOP Agent

The most important message to give to a TOP agent is to "Communicate!" People at TOP posts are asked to report what they see without editing, without waiting for conclusive information, and without any concern about being wrong. Just as the people on the ground cannot see all that is seen from the Tactical Observation Post, the TOP agent cannot see from above all the pieces of the puzzle on the ground. It's the combination of the two vantage points that best serves safety.

TOP agents are ideally told: Report everything your intuition makes interesting to you, without regard to whether you see an attack panning out. If you make a report and it turns out there was no hazard (which is the expected norm), you have lost nothing and you've added a new distinction to your intuition, such that it might not sound the alarm again in a similar situation. Intuition is always learning, and though it may occasionally send a signal that turns out to be less than urgent, everything it communicates has meaning. When you get an intuitive signal, most of the work is already done -- your next job is to share what you observe or suspect with the protective team. Intuition will not waste your time; it is always in response to something, and always has your best interest at heart.

Ingmar Bergman said: "Imagine I throw a spear into the dark. That is my intuition. Then I have to send an expedition into the jungle to find the spear. That is my intellect." If assigned to a TOP responsibility, let the protective team on the ground, and not your intellect, be the expedition that is sent into the jungle to find the spear.

Visible or Covert?

TOP posts can be manned covertly or overtly, and there are advantages and disadvantages to each. A protector taking the overt approach is clearly visible to members of the general public who happen to look up, and this can bring the benefit of deterrence. In the diary he kept while stalking President Nixon, attacker Arthur Bremer wrote about observing "SS men on the roof," a sight that contributed to his conclusion that the President was too well protected to attack that day. Bremer eventually abandoned President Nixon as a target and switched to presidential candidate George Wallace, whom he found to be less protected.

Another benefit of staffing Tactical Observation Posts is that if security personnel occupy the best high-ground positions, then those positions are denied to would-be attackers. No (known) case illustrates this better than an attack on the Queen of England during a 1981 visit to New Zealand (
Compendium #481
). Three teenagers led by 17-year-old Christopher Lewis reportedly took a rifle to the area where they knew the Queen would be walking. The teens had chosen an ideal firing position -- so ideal, in fact, that they found two policemen had chosen the exact same place from which to observe the event. The boys were able to sneak away, and Lewis had to settle for a much less effective firing position. As the Queen entered the target area, he fired a round at her, but the round fell short. (Police and security officers walking with her heard the shot, but dismissed it as a car backfiring.)

Proponents of staffing Tactical Observation Posts covertly make the point that would-be attackers might be less likely to conceal their intent if they don't know they are being watched from above. All things considered, it is probably best to take a combined approach when resources allow, staffing both covert and overt Tactical Observation Posts. Then, when either post sees someone of concern, the overt TOP agent can withdraw from view temporarily, and the covert TOP agent can watch intently for any behavior that might result from the subject's belief that he is
not
being watched.

The most obvious pre-attack actions occur at the Moment of Commitment (drawing a weapon, boarding a stage, rushing a protectee) -- but by the time such actions are revealed, the fast clock has already started. Accordingly, TOP observations that are substantially pre-attack are likely to be most valuable to the mission. Some examples:

• Waiting for a long time along an assumed foot-route
  
• Adjustment of something under the clothing
  
• Indications that two seemingly independent people are communicating
  
• Placing an object somewhere and leaving it
  
• Trying to hide along the protectee's assumed foot-route
  
• Leaving a position and then returning to the same position (indicative of retrieving a weapon from a car or hotel room, for example)
  
• Doggedly returning to a position even after being told to move by protectors or event organizers
  
• Being turned away at one checkpoint, then moving to another in an attempt to gain entry there
  

North vs. South

Another aspect of space is geography, which is often relevant to safety. For example, the Compendium cases reveal that in the Southern U.S., long gun attacks have occurred more frequently than in the Northern U.S. (See Compendium cases of
Evers #2
,
Walker #3
,
JFK #4
,
Rockwell #7
,
King #8
,
Crescente #14
,
Flynt #16
,
Wood #20
,
Jordan #22
, and
Slepian #60
, for example). Accordingly, when protectees are in the South, protectors are wise to give extra attention to the kinds of environments that could benefit a long-gun attacker.

Attackers who choose long guns over handguns are generally more interested in getting away -- and they are more likely to get away. The long gun makes escape more likely in two ways: First, the attack can be mounted from a greater distance. Second, unlike with handgun attacks in which the danger subsides once the shooter is under control, with rifle attacks, people in the target area cannot easily assess whether the danger has passed; accordingly, people remain in place longer -- and this fact benefits an attacker who intends to escape.

Any location or situation that increases the possibility of escape makes attacks attractive to a wider group of people. An attacker who can escape does not make as great a sacrifice as one who will surely be caught. Another geographic component worth noting is that most attackers in the Southern U.S. acted out of ideological motivation as opposed to the desire for fame. Ideological attackers are less likely to want to be caught, and are more likely to use long guns.

One case study that validates many of the concepts discussed in this chapter (notably ACE, TOP, and the North/South issue) thankfully does not include an attack, even though the situation and the space offered many advantages to an attacker. A series of public appearances took place daily over several weeks in a Southern U.S. city. Our protectee was at the center of a major national controversy that profoundly affected many people in the region.

Each day, media and onlookers gathered outside a public building the protectee had to enter. The regular public entrance placed our client in a canyon of highrise buildings and other ideal snipers' nests. All but one of those buildings afforded easy access to the rooftop through unlocked doors.

Further, the public entrance was in clear view of one of the worst types of structures for our work: a multi-level, open-sided parking facility. Anyone could drive a van or car onto any of the five levels, park wherever he found the best view of the protectee arriving and departing, base out of a vehicle, and benefit from a concrete half-wall that afforded concealment. A sniper could wait in his car or van for the ideal moment, fire a rifle (perhaps without even getting out of the vehicle), and then drive away through any of several exits on the far side of the structure, getting a significant head start in his escape. And because these appearances were in the South, the likelihood of rifle attack was elevated.