2 Teams at Once
The following story is from one of our scouts is a quick but interesting tale about how well-thought our plans go afoul despite precise planning and good intentions.
Our scout was at a famous cathedral attending mass. He was not on duty or even doing any scouting work, just there for the celebration of the mass. He noticed a group of people come in with an EP detail who took their seats in a pew. But a few moments later a group of very suspicious men came in and were looking at all of the celebrants sitting in the pews. The EP’s in the cathedral with their charges in the pews reacted immediately to what they saw as a possible threat and began to hustle their charges out of the cathedral only to run into more of these suspicious men who tried to stop them. The shoving between the inbound people and the outbound people lasted 30 to 45 seconds, but it certainly seemed longer
What had occurred, determined after mass, was the EP detail in the cathedral reacted to a second EP detail also escorting a charge to the cathedral. They reacted to the EP detail as a threat, and created a circle around their charge and headed out only to run into a second EP detail that had surrounded their charge and were trying to enter the cathedral. The shoving became intense as the corridor leading in or out (depending upon your direction of travel) was very small. The situation was diffused when one of the charges caught site of the other charge, it was someone he knew. The charges were the ones to diffuse the situation.
It is also a lesson that there has to be one or more points of access and egress scouted out for each situation. The cathedral is a low threat but highly public location. Even as a historic location with intentionally limited points of access and egress to control the tourists; others do exist and must be known to the public and be ready to be used.
I am not sure if this scenario can be projected, but if one is doing an advance survey, maybe we need to ask the question of those running the location. “Has anyone else contacted you, the proprietor of a place, that may be arriving with an EP detail at the same time as my group?”
Failing that, maybe one of your team could go ask the other group if one does appear. But that too has difficulties, if they are looking for your charge; you have just sacrificed one person to the enemy’s sphere of control.
This Executive Protection article was written or edited by Baron James Shortt, the Executive Director of the IBA. http://www.ibabodyguards.com
