This is a vivid example of how to apply intelligence usefully, but only if reacting in time. The application is criminal. It is predatory. It is even carried out by villains unlikely to have had the benefit of federal grants or seminars promoting fusion centers and hire of intelligence analysts. Even so, at least the crooks exploiting this intelligence recognize that, unlike brandy, intelligence cheapens with age. Consider the story and the unstated contrast with how bureaucracy would approach the same situation.
What is Happening: Crooks Exploit a Novel Indicator
Burglars who focus on loot with minimal risk know that striking an occupied residence is a bad idea. Risks of apprehension and confrontation skyrocket. Then, if the burglar breaks in armed, the event can easily escalate into a violent crime that spells stiffer penalties and a greater chance of someone getting hurt. Unsurprisingly, proficient burglars prefer to strike when the home or business is unoccupied. To improve their odds, though, Seattle burglars have struck on the tactic of breaking into cars parked at movie theaters, breaking into those cars to grab vehicle registrations, and then burglarizing the homes at addresses reflected on the vehicle registrations. According to the related press report (available at
abcnews.go.com/US/stolen-car-registrations-lead-thieves-empty-homes-owners/story?id=16108396 ), these burglars calculate that they have a good two-hour window to strike unoccupied homes before the victims return from a night out. This tactic gives burglars the advantage of striking during the hours of darkness, when it is easier to remain undetected, while also targeting an unoccupied residence.
What If Tables Turned?
What if a government bureaucracy were contending with trying to take in and act on intelligence like this within two hours? That's right. The time elapsed from obtaining the intelligence that a homeowner is away from home and occupied elsewhere, then acting on that intelligence to go to the unoccupied home and clean it out -- all this has to take place within two hours. Would the bureaucratic organization be able to act so quickly? Let's see. First, there would have to be a special squad with training, equipment, and overtime to set up surveillance on movie theater parking lots. Next, there would have to be special funding to underwrite acquisition of license plate cameras and software, along with connectivity to a special database and a related crime analyst to process that data in order to harvest those residential addresses. Then there would need to be a separate, mobile team specialized in clandestine entry. Naturally, to coordinate the efforts of the surveillance and entry teams, there would need to be a management element, operating out of a specially designed command center. That center would need electronic pin maps to display vehicles and residences, as well as video feeds and wall-sized monitors to show street views of relevant information in real time. Soon, the squad balloons into a platoon, and the platoon into a regiment. With all those people participating in the effort, conditions call for setting up a task force which, owing to the specialization required for optimum performance, ends up becoming one of those temporary activities that turns permanent -- at least as long as funding is available. Unfortunately, though, the abundance of resources and specialists and managerial overseers now makes it impossible to act on any intelligence in only two hours. Consequently, the bureaucracy now needs to deploy a specially trained stall team to engage the targeted movie-goers by staging an accident or contriving some kind of distraction that will delay their return to the unoccupied residence.
Results-Focused Contrast
By contrast, the crooks can do it all with lower staffing, or even just one person. More realistically, the practical skeleton crew would probably involve no fewer than two people: one behind the wheel to serve at lookout and getaway driver, and the other to smash into cars and grab registrations. Then the two drive to the target residence or residences and speed through the burglary. Both probably operate without a budget for exotic electronics and tie-ins to command centers to assist with target selection. Instead, they concentrate on hitting expensive-looking cars that were driven to the movie-theater by people wearing expensive clothes. The more they strike, the more they refine their target-selection protocols. These energetic Davids make up in alacrity and boldness what their more cumbersome Goliaths in bureaucracy only approximate through big budgets, over specialization, and lack of imagination.
Is this comparison exaggerated? Perhaps. Far-fetched? Not necessarily. Sometimes a tighter focus on results trumps the bureaucracy's inherent tendencies to magnify, complicate, and embellish.
- Nick Catrantzos
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Good Lesson Lost in Bad Shooting Analysis
The murder of seven students at Oikos University in Oakland by a disgruntled former student triggered pontificating that masked the value of some responses that saved lives and kept the body count from multiplying.
A good representation of the pontificating appeared in the Christian Science Monitor’s article of April 3, 2012, “Oakland school shooting: Is there a lesson to be learned from the tragedy?”
(Available at
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2012/0403/Oakland-school-shooting-Is-there-a-lesson-to-be-learned-from-the-tragedy ).
Mention of the useful responses made a cameo appearance in earlier news, as in the Associated Press’s straight reporting on the preceding day, April 2, 2012, in “Cops: 7 dead, 3 hurt in Christian school shooting”
(Available at
http://news.yahoo.com/cops-7-dead-3-hurt-christian-school-shooting-214742437.html ).
Afterwards, however, when the media made its usual calls to self-styled experts on workplace violence to hold forth on the Oakland shootings, the focus shifted to more speculative waxing on themes like school bullying and pre-termination counseling for malcontents, on the unvalidated theory that counselors would (a) soften any harsh blow of bad news that would otherwise send the recipient to his sidearm and thoughts of carnage or (b) magically detect the nefarious intent of such shooters in time to prevent rampage killings. Sadly, there is no proof that the average school or workplace counselor can consistently deliver on either (a) or (b). So, if the speculations of experts appear suspiciously like sales pitches promoting expert wares, it should come as no surprise. What is a little surprising – and disappointing – is the myopic focus on expert offerings and comfort zones at the expense of some timely, life-saving actions that deserve to be celebrated instead of ignored.
These actions epitomize what has become a reflexive response in emergency management: In times of danger, saving lives often comes down to a decision to either evacuate or shelter-in-place. And sometimes, the same event requires opposite decisions, depending on immediate circumstances. So it was with the Oakland school shooting. This was captured vividly in the earlier, AP story, before the expert, Monday morning quarterbacks had their chance to weigh in the next day.
As the AP story revealed, one teacher saved lives by locking her classroom door and having her students shelter in place. The gunman shot out some classroom windows but did not injure any of those students. Another student reported that her English teacher, on hearing the commotion, told students to run, and they did, escaping a chance to expand the casualty count.
What the speculating experts missed in the subsequent article was that some people in the school itself did indeed react well under fire, saving lives by resorting to traditional options to hunker down (shelter-in-place) or flee (evacuate). The old lessons still apply. Extra counseling, while potentially useful, is not nearly so important to saving lives when bullets are flying and the situation calls for action rather than reflection. Before finding fault with school administrators for not instituting a major counseling initiative to observe and mollify dysfunctional students or to overtrain victims about when to rush the shooter instead of standing still while he shoots them one at a time (as the Christian Science Monitor’s article had one expert saying), school leadership would be wise to acknowledge the foregoing life-saving responses that kept the body count from rivaling that of Virginia Tech only a few years ago. There is always room for improvement, but we should not diminish the positive responses in a theoretical search for perfect solutions.
– Nick Catrantzos
A good representation of the pontificating appeared in the Christian Science Monitor’s article of April 3, 2012, “Oakland school shooting: Is there a lesson to be learned from the tragedy?”
(Available at
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2012/0403/Oakland-school-shooting-Is-there-a-lesson-to-be-learned-from-the-tragedy ).
Mention of the useful responses made a cameo appearance in earlier news, as in the Associated Press’s straight reporting on the preceding day, April 2, 2012, in “Cops: 7 dead, 3 hurt in Christian school shooting”
(Available at
http://news.yahoo.com/cops-7-dead-3-hurt-christian-school-shooting-214742437.html ).
Afterwards, however, when the media made its usual calls to self-styled experts on workplace violence to hold forth on the Oakland shootings, the focus shifted to more speculative waxing on themes like school bullying and pre-termination counseling for malcontents, on the unvalidated theory that counselors would (a) soften any harsh blow of bad news that would otherwise send the recipient to his sidearm and thoughts of carnage or (b) magically detect the nefarious intent of such shooters in time to prevent rampage killings. Sadly, there is no proof that the average school or workplace counselor can consistently deliver on either (a) or (b). So, if the speculations of experts appear suspiciously like sales pitches promoting expert wares, it should come as no surprise. What is a little surprising – and disappointing – is the myopic focus on expert offerings and comfort zones at the expense of some timely, life-saving actions that deserve to be celebrated instead of ignored.
These actions epitomize what has become a reflexive response in emergency management: In times of danger, saving lives often comes down to a decision to either evacuate or shelter-in-place. And sometimes, the same event requires opposite decisions, depending on immediate circumstances. So it was with the Oakland school shooting. This was captured vividly in the earlier, AP story, before the expert, Monday morning quarterbacks had their chance to weigh in the next day.
As the AP story revealed, one teacher saved lives by locking her classroom door and having her students shelter in place. The gunman shot out some classroom windows but did not injure any of those students. Another student reported that her English teacher, on hearing the commotion, told students to run, and they did, escaping a chance to expand the casualty count.
What the speculating experts missed in the subsequent article was that some people in the school itself did indeed react well under fire, saving lives by resorting to traditional options to hunker down (shelter-in-place) or flee (evacuate). The old lessons still apply. Extra counseling, while potentially useful, is not nearly so important to saving lives when bullets are flying and the situation calls for action rather than reflection. Before finding fault with school administrators for not instituting a major counseling initiative to observe and mollify dysfunctional students or to overtrain victims about when to rush the shooter instead of standing still while he shoots them one at a time (as the Christian Science Monitor’s article had one expert saying), school leadership would be wise to acknowledge the foregoing life-saving responses that kept the body count from rivaling that of Virginia Tech only a few years ago. There is always room for improvement, but we should not diminish the positive responses in a theoretical search for perfect solutions.
– Nick Catrantzos
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