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Photo by Gavin de Becker & Associates

The other entry possibility for our client was slightly less exposed, but had its own serious problem, almost a cliche for public figures appearing in the South: An abandoned motel frequented by vagabonds. Like the parking structure, the motel had five levels of open balcony walkways. A sniper could hide in any of the easy-to-access rooms, most of them with torn, but still-concealing curtains.

Photo by Gavin de Becker & Associates

Photo by Gavin de Becker & Associates

We started our evaluation with ACE. The environment and situation did afford an attacker with Access to our protectee (in this instance, visual access), Concealment for a sniper, and Escape opportunities. Standing where the protectee will stand, one can take measure of ACE both by assessing the obvious features of the surroundings, and also by getting an intuitive feel for the environment and situation. In this case, two of the authors stood there and knew by every measure that the vulnerability to attack was substantial.

Managing high-ground hazards that cannot be easily eliminated calls for two essential steps:

• Minimize the protectee's duration of exposure to the hazards, and
  
• Maximize the distance between possible snipers' nests and the protectee.
  

In other words, do not remain in the area of exposure any longer than absolutely necessary, and be as far as possible from high-ground positions that would favor an attacker.

Adding more protectors around the protectee does not counter the tremendous advantage an attacker gains by a high-ground position, as the following photo makes clear. All around the protectee you see protectors and police officers, and many more protectors are along the route from the building to the car. The protectee is totally surrounded by protectors, and yet from the photographer's high-ground position, a sniper would have a clear shot.

Photo by Gavin de Becker & Associates

In a canyon of high-rise buildings, it isn't practical to place protectors at all staging points which a sniper might occupy, so effective Tactical Observation Posts (TOPs) become critical. When a protectee is exposed to one or more high-rise buildings with many windows, observers can be placed in vantage positions opposite the buildings to observe those windows and to communicate anything relevant to the members of the security team on the ground with the protectee.

In this case, given that there were so many rooftops and other vantage points for attackers, we deployed twenty-one people to the TOP responsibility. This included one person on each level of the open parking structure. Fifteen of them were overt (visible). While deploying so many people would be impractical in most situations, remember that such posts needn't be staffed for any longer than the period of exposure. In our case, that meant the brief walk between the car and the entry point, during two brief periods a day (arrival and departure). Also, these posts need not all be staffed with skilled protection professionals. For this assignment, we used administrative staff members, local police officers, and even two trainees.

In addition to the benefits of observation we gained, each TOP position we occupied denied that position to an attacker.

At the abandoned motel, city police conducted daily sweeps of the building in the hour prior to each of our client's appearances. However, nothing short of full access control could have reliably ensured that the building remained free of attackers -- and police did not have the resources to make any guarantees.

Given the various inherent challenges of having to enter the same building day after day, and given that the environment afforded so few advantages to us and so many to potential attackers, we took every practical step we could: We used a security-enhanced vehicle, unpredictably alternated between the two possible entrances to the building, deployed many protectors immediately around the protectee -- and above all, literally
above all,
placed many protectors in TOP positions.

In the following series of photos, even though walking along a closed and secured street, surrounded by protectors and police, it's blatantly obvious that the TOP location occupied by our protector (who took these photos) would otherwise have afforded a superb vantage point for an attacker.

Photos by Gavin de Becker & Associates

Assigning Resources at Book Signing Events

In
Chapter 2
, we explored whether projective roles (protectors positioned
at
the attacker) are more important than protective roles (protectors positioned
at
the protectee). When moving through crowds without much control over the environment, any protector might be called to act protectively or projectively, depending upon where an attack commences. But many public appearances involve crowds or onlookers in controlled and predetermined places, with the protectee in a predetermined location. In such instances, protectors have the opportunity to decide how to distribute resources ahead of time.

One common type of public appearance, the book signing, gives us the chance to show the practical application of the concepts in this chapter. Booksignings offer attackers the two primary benefits of ACE, in that every attendee is afforded direct access to the protectee, and every attendee is also afforded some concealment as a member of the crowd. At the book signing, the protectee will be stationary and seated behind a table, while members of the public are ushered along the front of a table. Were an attack to occur at a book signing, protectors behind and adjacent to the protectee are most likely to act protectively (blocking, or moving the protectee down, to the side, away) -- while protectors interacting with and closest to the attendees are most likely to act projectively (disruption of aim, interference, disarming). So here we have a decision of resource allocation:
Do we assign more people to protective or projective roles?

In this situation, people in projective positions are more likely to prevent or foil an attack than those in protective positions. In fact, that's the case for most public appearances, except for those few times that a protectee can be surrounded so much that he becomes barely visible, instances that are rare because, by definition, a public appearance is about being seen by the public.

In terms of advantages offered to attackers, book signings are the most high-risk appearances of any meet-and-greet event:

• Every single person who attends a book signing has the realistic expectation of a close, face-to-face encounter with the protectee.
  
• The encounter will be relatively long in duration, having to accommodate the presentation and signing of the book, some exchange of words, and often a handshake or even photo.
  
• The protectee will usually be seated, and thus lower than an attacker and more difficult to move than a standing protectee.
  Note: with seated protectees, we utilize a chair with wheels, so protectors can roll the chair (and thus the protectee) back or to the side quickly and with ease.
  
• Book signings are announced well in advance of the event date, and they occur at public sites which can be extensively surveilled ahead of time.
  
• Finally, a would-be assailant can observe fairly accurate replications of the next public appearance by attending other book signings during the protectee's book tour.
  
• He can observe the actual protectors, and become familiar with their demeanor and strategies.
  

Even with all these attacker advantages, capable protectors are likely to defeat an attacker in this setting if they exploit the degree of control available to them at such events. This means designing wise crowd management strategies, and above all, taking time away from an attacker by ensuring direct, arm's reach access to every attendee. It's also useful to have a visual block that prevents those waiting in line from seeing the protectee and protectors until each attendee is just about to enter the protected area. This removes the advantage an attacker could gain by observing the protectee for a long period, and also reduces the likelihood of an attack being launched while the attacker is somewhere in the line.