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Preparedness Lessons from Executive Protection (pt 1 of 2)

by David Morris on January 26, 2012

Welcome to this week’s Urban Survival Newsletter, brought to you by my famous and popular SurviveInPlace.com course–a vital resource for anyone who wants to prepare for disasters and who thinks they might have to interact with other people after a disaster (yes…this means you . This week, we’re going to do the first of a 2 part series on preparedness lessons from executive protection. This is very meaty, valuable stuff and you’re going to like it.

After my first son was born, it struck me JUST how important my role as a protector was. When it was just my wife and me, I knew she could handle herself with or without weapons. But when our tiny, innocent son was born, my need to be able to protect my family went through the roof.

As a result, in addition to other empty hands and firearms training, I went through 70+ hours of formal executive protection training that helped refine my skills as a protector, a planner, and as a prepper.

If you’re not familiar with “executive protection,” it is another term for bodyguard, except that bodyguards are traditionally hired “by the pound” and executive protection specialists have skills and training WAY beyond simply throwing their weight around. The use of the phrase “executive protection” became popular in 1970 when the White House Police Force was renamed the Executive Protection Services. When they again changed their name to “Secret Service Uniformed Division” in 1977, the phrase “executive protection” went into wide use in the civilian sector.

There is a huge overlap between the disciplines of executive protection and preparedness. In fact, the job of a skilled EP (executive protection specialist) is 95-99% preparation and only 1-5% reaction. There are several lessons that have been paid for with the blood of others that we can benefit from…not only after a disaster when we’re in survival mode, but tomorrow when going to work, the store, or to see a friend.

Most of the proponents of “be your own bodyguard” are only interested in fighting, but the best professional bodyguards plan for, identify, and avoid trouble more often than they “go loud” and have to use violence or lethal force to protect their subject.

One of the best examples of this is the US Secret Service. President G.W. Bush received approximately 3000 threats per year during his presidency. President Obama received about 30 per day or 11,000 per year initially, but quickly dropped back down to “normal” levels. With all of the threats, credible threats, and planned attempts that have been made on our leaders, the last one that was semi-successfully pulled off was in 1981. (I’m not counting the airplane or rifle “attacks” on the White House as being even semi-successful)

To continue that example, we’re not going to focus on the handful of times that Secret Service had to go loud and eliminate the threat of a potential assassin…we’re going to focus instead on what they did the other 60,000 times to keep our presidents safe. Specifically, we’re going to focus on the skills and thought processes that the Secret Service and executive protection specialists use to avoid trouble for them and their subjects/protectees/principals.

Fortunately, most aspects of executive protection are not very complicated. They become complicated by the sheer number of simple things that executive protection specialists must do right. The sooner you start practicing a few of these skills and disciplines, the better you will be at them and the quicker you’ll be able to add on additional ones.

You will have one HUGE advantage over executive protection specialists—when they go on the job, it’s normally because their principal either has an active threat against them, or because they have a high profile and are a good target. When you go “on the job,” it’s to protect yourself or the ones you love. There’s no immediate threat, and you get to learn on the job.

With that, let’s look at some of the practices that bodyguards do to keep their principals from being attacked.

One of the things that bodyguards do is to look at places where they know their principal will be and find the best spots to do surveillance and/or attack from.

Let’s take your home as an example. If you can, pull up an overhead shot of your house from maps.google.com. You’ll have the option of viewing your house as a map or as an overhead picture. Choose the overhead picture option, zoom in to the 2nd or 3rd highest setting, and print it out.

You might need the help of someone who knows some computer trickery to make this happen. Since you can’t print satellite images from Google, you have to do a screen capture (Prnt Scrn), copy it into a word processor or graphics program, change it into landscape mode, and THEN print it out. It will look better if you have a color printer, but I print out on black and white and it’s definitely usable.

If you don’t want to go to the trouble of figuring out this method, you can simply take a piece of paper and a pencil and draw out your house and the houses around you. It doesn’t need to be fancy…the whole purpose of this is to train your brain.

Next, mark every place on the map that you can see from a door or window from your house. This will end up being a series of overlapping arcs. I like to shade this area in. The reason this is important is because anyone who wants to see a door or window on your house will have to be in this shaded area. From an executive protection standpoint, it means that anyone who wants to surveil or cause harm to the principal will need to be within these arcs.

The way that I use this information is that I look at our house through the eyes of a burglar or home invader. Where would I need to be to have a clear view into the house? Where would I need to be to see when the occupants are turning off lights to go to bed? Where would I need to be to see which occupants are coming and going? Where would I need to be to see whether or not they lock the door or set an alarm when they leave?

Then, if I see people in those places that I don’t recognize, I immediately take note of them. I don’t panic or get freaked out. I just take note of them. I regularly write down license plate numbers or discretely snap pictures with my phone. If they’re sitting in their car on either side of the street in front of my house, I’ll drive or walk up to them and ask them if I can help them.

Please understand, I don’t have any specific threats that I’m concerned about. I’m just aware that home invasions happen 8 times more often than house fires and I want to protect my family. I don’t invest much time or effort in doing this, but I have the peace of mind of knowing what’s going on around me and any strangers in front of our house know that they’ve been seen, acknowledged, and could probably be identified in a lineup if they decided to do anything stupid.

When dealing with predators who are simply looking for easy prey, being acknowledged is oftentimes enough to cause them to move on to another area.

Another example, is spotting someone sitting in a van right next to your car in a parking lot. I’ve helped film scenarios built around this and we found that a lone man could easily shove a lady into a van, incapacitate her, shut the door, restrain her with pre-cut duct tape or zip ties, get in the driver’s seat, and drive off inconspicuously in under 15 seconds.

So, if you’ve got a situation where you find a “creepy” person or people in a van next to your car, you can walk on by and approach from a different angle to see if you get a better feeling, get in your car from the other side, or, if possible, ask security to walk you to your car.

Alternate Exits: This is a simple one, but vital for executive protection specialists. When you go anywhere, always try to quickly pick out multiple conventional (doors) and unconventional (windows) exits. In the movie, “Fireproof”, Kirk Cameron’s character finds himself trapped in a burning house and hacks through the floor and crawls out through the crawlspace to escape. It’s not important that you don’t walk around with an axe to hack through floors—what’s important is to train your mind to see egress possibilities around you.

The reason for exiting could be a gas leak, accidental explosion, terrorist attack, fire, earthquake, robbery, active shooter, or simply avoiding someone who might cause an unnecessary confrontation.

Weather planning: A good executive protection specialist will not only take care of their own needs for inclement weather, but their principal’s as well. For our family, this means that I have stocked our cars with extra clothes for myself, my wife, and our kids. It’s nothing fancy…but it’s in place.

Redundancy and contingency plans: Redundancy and contingency planning are key principals, whether you’re doing executive planning, running a company or key project, doing activities in the back country, or just day to day life. Here are some specific areas that executive protection specialists focus on that you can benefit from.

Contingency meetup plans. As an example, “If we get split up, we’ll come back to this location every top-of-the-hour and half-hour and stay here for 5 minutes. If we don’t meet up after 3 hours, we’ll meet at home.”Or, “If an earthquake or similar event happens and we don’t have communications, I’ll pick up our son from school and we’ll all meet at home. If neither of us can get home or it’s untenable, we’ll post a note if possible and meet at Joe’s house. If that’s untenable, we’ll post a note if possible and meet at church.
Contingent communications plans. These could be cell phones, radios, whistles, or “If local phone service goes down, we’ll both get in touch with your sister (in another part of the country) by all means possible (phone, voice mail, text, email) and use her to get back in touch with each other
Have Primary, Alternate, Contingent, and Emergency (PACE) routes to your destination
Have PACE plans for medical care. I know where the hospitals are in my city. I also know where private surgical centers are, veterinarians, fire departments (Paramedics), veterinary supply stores, EMT supply stores, and basic drug stores like Walgreens…particularly in the parts of the city where I spend the most time.
When I travel to other cities, I spend about 5-10 minutes before I leave and find where these resources are located near where I’m going to be. I probably should memorize addresses, and phone numbers and/or write everything down like I would on a protective detail, but simply having a picture in my mind of where facilities are puts me WAY ahead of the curve.

On the topic of medical care, EPs who have medical and especially advanced trauma training are in higher demand and get paid more. Likewise, get all of the medical training you can justify and keep the supplies you need close at hand.

I don’t spend a ton of time on this. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found that the simpler I keep my habits, the more likely I am to keep them as active habits.

Match the baseline. Everywhere you spend time has a “normal” or “baseline” look. Taking on this look is called, “becoming the ‘grey man’” and the discipline is called “cover for status.” At a dress ball, it may be formal wear. At the beach, bikinis, Speedos, and other swim attire are the norm. At a park in the summer, it might be shorts and light weight shirts. At that same park in the winter, it might be heavy coats, hats, and gloves. Wear any of these four outfits at any of the other three settings and you’ll stick out like a sore thumb.

As a note, this can happen in a situation where you have to stop at a gas station on the way to a formal event, which, is another reason to plan ahead as often as possible.

In executive protections, there are basically two ways that you can go…overt and covert. Said another way, either look intimidating or look invisible by matching the baseline.

As a bodyguard for yourself or your family, it’s normally better to be the grey man and stay invisible. You can do this by not wearing excessive tactical clothing, using your peripheral vision to scan the room, and not acting like you’re on edge all of the time. Just try to look as lost and confused as everyone around you. If a situation arises where you need to let someone know that you’re “switched on,” then that is still easy to switch into that mode.

Cover for status is also an important tool for identifying threats. Who doesn’t belong? Does the kid with the droopy pants and the puffy coat and the crooked ball cap smoking in front of the 7-11 at noon on July 4th fit in? Or is there a possibility that he’s looking for a victim?

“Cover for action” could be called the twin sister of “cover for status.” Cover for action is having your appearance match your actions. Climb a utility pole with shorts and a t-shirt on, and someone will probably call the cops. Get out of a utility van wearing jeans, work boots, a tool belt, hard hat, and climbing gear and nobody will even remember seeing you climb the pole.

Ask someone their date of birth, social security number, sexual habits, and other private medical questions in a mall, and you’ll get slapped. Put on a nametag and hand someone a detailed survey on a clipboard with a 10c bic pen tied to it in a doctor’s office and they’ll tell you more than you REALLY want to know.

If you notice people who don’t have a cover for their actions, take it as a sign to pay closer attention to them.

Next time, well cover more, including funnels and channels, obfuscation, one of my favorite improvised weapons that are legally REQUIRED to be everywhere that you can’t have a “weapon”, driving, and more. In the meantime, if your interested in learning more strategies to incorporate Executive Protection into a preparedness lifestyle, I’d suggest that you check out my SurviveInPlace.com Urban Survival Course. In addition to covering all of the basics of preparing for disasters, it also goes into some advanced topics such as tactical movement to and from barter/trade situations after a breakdown in civil order. The course is a true treasure for people ranging from newbie “preppers” to lifelong Special Ops guys trying to pass on a lifetime of experience to loved ones. To learn more, check it out at http://surviveinplace.com

What are your thoughts on “living as a bodyguard”…either of yourself or of familiy members? Are you currently or have you done EP work in the past? How has it carried over to your everyday life and what lessons can you share with others? Let us know by commenting below.

If you liked this article, please “like” us on Facebook, share the link by email, Facebook, or Twitter, and tell your friends.

God Bless & Stay Safe,

David Morris
www.SurviveInPlace.com

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This One Self-Defense Mistake Could Get You Killed

by David Morris on January 19, 2012

Welcome to this week’s Urban Survival Newsletter. This week, we’re going to talk about the problems of hostile confrontation in a disaster situation as well as a couple of tricks to keep firearm components from working their way loose and folding knives opening smoothly.

There was a story that came out of San Antonio this week that emphasizes a point that I’ve attempted to make several times in the past.

A 27 year old man was home one evening last week when two armed robbers entered his house. He was able to defend himself with a shotgun, killing one and injuring the other. He took a bullet to the chin and was injured in the process, but this would seem like a very good example of defending yourself against violent attackers.

Then, this week, friends of the robbers returned and did a drive-by shooting on the house in retaliation for the homeowner successfully defending himself. They fired “several” shots, hitting the house and a neighbor’s car, but fortunately nobody was injured.

This retaliation scenario is exactly the type of situation that you want to avoid in an urban survival situation.

Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. I’m a very tactically minded person and I believe in and train for defending myself and my family from violent attacks with the most efficient tools and techniques available. If I was in the same situation as this guy, I would have defended myself too.

But it’s dangerous, and I’d argue outright irresponsible to think that your primary means of defending your home, your family, your property, and your life in a survival situation is going to be with violence.

When some people think about preparedness, the first thing that they think of is going loud (shooting) or going kinetic (physically engaging an enemy/attacker). As a result, they think they’re not prepared unless they have guns and ammo and they think they ARE prepared once they do have guns and ammo. Their fallback position is using their weapons, and they don’t have too many “tools” that they have thought about using to help diffuse tense situations to keep them from getting out of hand.

Kinetic skills are important skills to have, but in many cases you want to do what you can to try to avoid unnecessary conflict that will lead to violent escalation and possible retaliation. If nothing else, avoiding unnecessary conflict allows you to have fewer enemies to worry about.

In Aristotle’s book, “Rhetoric” he says that it is absurd that a person feels shame at his inability do defend himself physically, but not his inability to defend himself through speech and reasoning, particularly given the fact that the use of speech is more common than the use of physical force.

That wisdom is as true today as it was in the 300s BC.

And, as another bonus, just like you have the opportunity to defend yourself with speech and reasoning more often than you have opportunity to defend yourself physically, you also have many more real life situations to sharpen your verbal skills than you do your physical defense skills.

Keep in mind that not every situation can be diffused…and sometimes a judicious use of force is exactly what’s called for, but if you can live at peace with others around you, it’s normally a wise move.

I’ll give you an example. You’re two weeks into a regional catastrophic power outage. A family comes to your door, knocks, calls out your name and says who they are. You don’t particularly like the father and don’t know the wife or the kids.

One scenario could be that you open a slot, stick a shotgun barrel out of the slot, tell them to get the heck off of your property, to find their own darn food, that they can’t have any of your stuff, and that you’ll shoot them if they come back before they and their kids starve to death.

But another scenario could be to tell them that your neighborhood needs help digging some new slit trenches, cranking a hand generator, breaking soil, gathering wood, etc. and if they’re willing to work, you’d be willing to try to gather up a little something from your neighbors.

In the first scenario, the situation will end with the family feeling powerless, dejected, and possibly like they don’t have anything to lose by gathering up some friends and coming back to attack you.

In the second scenario, you have proposed a scenario where both parties can get something of value, the family saves face, and you’ve set the expectation that there’s not much available and that they can’t come back to ask for more without contributing value. You’re not giving in and you’re not butting heads—you’re redirecting them so that you’re teammates for a short time.

A few other thoughts on the topic of escalating vs. deescalating conflicts in a survival situation.

When people are desperate, law enforcement is busy, and the perceived reward of acting anti-socially outweighs the perceived risk, it’s human nature to act more like an animal than civilized if the person thinks it is necessary for survival. Under these situations, you can’t just act rudely to people and not expect some fallout.
During any natural disasters, man made disasters, breakdown in supply chains, or breakdowns in civil order, we can expect the EMS system to be taxed, overloaded, or dysfunctional. Fight scenes are cool in movies and books, but in real life, they lead to injuries, abrasions, cuts, breaks, infections, and a loss of productivity. There’s nothing “cool” about winning a fight with a bunch of gang bangers, only to lose the use of your hand due to a cut or die from a simple untreated infection.
When you’ve created a situation where there’s a good chance of retaliation, it might be a good time to temporarily relocate, permanently relocate, or increase security substantially. Increasing security isn’t really an option unless you have a tight knit neighborhood or a good sized mutual aid group, so it may not be a good option.

My personal thought is that I’ll avoid conflict wherever possible, deescalate verbally when possible, and decisively conclude the conflict kinetically when that is the only option.

Using your gear:

I recently bought a used M4 that had an Aimpoint scope on it as well as a screw-on accessory rail for the foregrip. It’s a great gun, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed shooting it…and I’m REALLY glad that I’ve had a couple of sessions with where I ran it through it’s paces.

What happened was that the mounting screws on the Aimpoint scope AND the screws on the accessory rail worked their way loose. I have to admit that I tried wiggling them both with my hands and they seemed tight and I assumed they’d been screwed in tightly, so I didn’t even attempt to tighten them down.

After running a few mags through the gun a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that the foregrip and the scope were both loose. That’s not a nice feeling.

Fortunately, I carry a Wheeler Gunsmith Toolkit that has 89 different screwdriver bits so that I can get the EXACT right width bit when I’m tightening down gun screws. I also keep a small tube of Loctite blue in my kit, so it was simply a matter of finding the right bit, taking out the screws, putting a tiny dab of Loctite blue on the screws, and putting them back in snugly.

Keep in mind that many people say that you should never need Loctite…that your screws should just fit perfectly and not come loose if you tighten them snugly. I’m of the school of thought that I’d rather use Loctite blue and be confident when I’m a few hundred rounds into a shooting session, whether it’s training, competition, fun, or serious.

As an alternative to Loctite, many people use clear fingernail polish or “Guntite”, which is equivalent to Loctite Blue. It’s really important that you use Loctite BLUE and not red. Blue can be removed, but red is pretty much permanent.

This is a good lesson on why it’s important to use your gear. Anything that you think you might have to trust your life to at some point in the future had better be tough enough for you to test it out now…that’s the only way to really be confident in it, and to get comfortable with dealing with malfunctions.

Another trick that might help you out if you carry a folding knife with a nylon/poly washer in it like the CRKT M-16 series knives do is to put a drop or two of PTFE (Teflon) lube on it. I’ve tried lots of different lubes on my knives and this is my favorite one so far because of the fact that it lasts a long time and doesn’t seem to attract dirt & grit.

That’s it for this week…what are your thoughts on “verbal self defense,” deescalating conflicts, and other options that you could take after creating a situation where retaliation is likely in a survival situation? How about tips and tricks for maintaining firearms and knives? Please share your thoughts by commenting below.

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God bless & stay safe!

David Morris

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Why You Should Own a Silencer (Suppressor)

January 12, 2012

Welcome to this week’s Urban Survival Newsletter, brought to you by Jeff Anderson’s Social Chaos Survival Guide. If you order it before Saturday, you’ll also receive a copy of his soon-to-be-released “250 Collapse Secrets.” Social Chaos Survival Guide is a great book that you’ll be very glad to have on your shelf. Learn more now [...]

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