PUERTO RICO POLICE DEPARTMENT

Northern Virginia - February-April 2005: In the spring of 2005, the Headquarters of the Puerto Rico Police Department (PRPD) desired to train 100 SWAT and Bomb Squad members.  The goal was to make them aware of the al-Qaeda threat, to receive HazMat training, to gain OSHA certification, and to learn HazMat crime scene processing. The 100 member PRPD group was broken into three equal-size groups, each receiving three weeks of intensive training.  The HazMat training and investigation workshop was conducted in Spanish and the scenario conformed to the geography and ambience of Puerto Rico.   

 

During the first week, OHSA-certified HazMat Instructors provided comprehensive training in handling and cleaning-up hazardous materials.  The comprehensive hands-on training resulted in all participants becoming OSHA-certified to do HazMat work.
   
The first day of the second week was devoted to intensive briefings on the origins, motives, operational history, and terrorist tradecraft of the al-Qaeda organization and its worldwide associates.   The briefings covered in detail the Modus Operandi of al-Qaeda cell members who have infiltrated the United States and are scouting targets and preparing to attack them. 

The PRPD SWAT and Bomb Squad officers spent the next four days immersed in the SHOEBOX^TM Workshop  scenario that had them examine 13 pieces of evidence obtained on members of an al-Qaeda cell. The PRPD officers were coached by expert criminal investigators to use special techniques to reveal the significance of each piece of evidence (e.g., pre-paid phone cards, pre-paid phones, a cell phone chip, a computer jump drive). During breakout sessions the PRPD members, split into teams, exercised the knowledge they had gained by ferreting information from the evidence and making plans for the next steps in locating and neutralizing the fictional al-Qaeda cell members they are attempting to identify.  The Teams each brief on their findings and plans, and are critiqued by the Subject Matter Expert (SME) investigations instructors. By the end of the week, aided by on-the-spot coaching by the SME investigators, the PRPD teams had “peeled back the onion” and thwarted the al-Qaeda cell’s efforts to attack three separate targets with Improvised Explosive Devices (IED).

The PRPD members spent the final week doing hands-on crime scene processing of real HazMat sites that contained the chemicals and explosives that the al-Qaeda cell members had gathered and prepared for the three planned attacks. OSHA-Certified HazMat investigative experts coached the PRPD members as they processed the crime scenes.  The high quality of this training provided OSHA certification to the students.  The last day of this course provided a mock trial, allowing the students to learn how to properly testify in court about mitigating a WMD crime scene.

The three-week course was conducted three times (33, 33, and 34 attendees).  During each iteration, senior PRPD officers participated with the SWAT and Bomb Squad members in order to directly observe the progress their investigators made from experiencing the hands-on training and the realistic scenario.  These officials praised the depth and quality of the course work.

 

The CRA employees and consultants who conducted this training and the hands-on learning experience are all full term career experts in their respective fields – HazMat, Criminal Investigations and Counterterrorism. Inter alia, the criminal investigators are absolute experts in collecting, processing and analyzing phone toll information and also steeped in al Qaeda's Modus Operandi.  They convey specialized knowledge that is essential to identifying and tracking clandestine al-Qaeda cell members.  Their years of field experience as investigators created an instant bonding with the PRPD students, enhancing this unique learning opportunity.

 

The Supervisor of this group of PRPD SWAT and Bomb Squad participants said this was by far the best training the police officers had ever received.  The high quality of this project has prompted the PRPD to engage CRA to conduct a year-long schedule of Terrorism Threat/Investigations training for large numbers of the field police force as well as several exercises to test their newly acquired capabilities.

Click HERE to contact Tom Irwin or phone him at (212) 402-5500 to discuss how CRA can assist you with exercise development