Public Event Security

almost everybody that's at an up and out event is going to be up and out i'm going to be looking at the race i'm going to be looking at the people i'm going to be looking at the the helicopters and the airplanes flying over and the flags that are waving so if i have somebody that's focused on the down and in and listen if you're listening to my voice and you've heard brian and i before these terms are simple if you've never heard these terms think about it i'm down and in and focused on my lap on macrame while the huge parade is going by

and Santa's throwing candy and all the kids are trying to run out into traffic.

That doesn't fit.

So I want to know why that doesn't fit.

And you know what? That doesn't make granny a terrorist,

but it's one person out of the 3,000 that now I want to focus that extra few seconds on when I'm walking by.

So anybody that's not actively engaged in what's going on,

welcome to the Left of Greg podcast.

Hello, and thank you for tuning in to the Left of Greg podcast.

I'm Brian Marin, the host and creator of the show.

As always, I will be joined by human behavior expert,

Mr. Greg Williams,

who the show is affectionately named after.

Here on the Left of Greg show,

our goal is to increase your advanced critical thinking ability through a better understanding of what we call human behavior,

pattern recognition,

and analysis.

If you'd like to find out more about what that is,

you can check the episode details.

If you have any questions or would like us to cover a specific topic, you can check out our website,

leftofgreg.com.

Please reach out to us at leftofgreg at gmail dot com.

Today we have a special guest on the show by the name of Charlie Haar.

Charlie is the Operations Coordinator for the annual Marine Corps Marathon that is coming up on October 29th in Arlington,

Virginia,

and he is tasked with coordinating security for the event as well as implementing the anti-terrorism force protection measures.

Charlie's a longtime listener of the show and has attended our in-person training in the past,

and since Greg and I are helping out with some of the training for the event,

we asked Charlie if he would come on the show so we could share his questions with our audience.

If you're involved in any type of large event security or if you ever attend large events yourself,

there are some great takeaways in the episode that you can use.

Please don't forget to follow us on social media. You can find the links in the episode details,

and if you enjoyed the podcast,

please share it with your friends.

Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you enjoy the show.

All right, gentlemen, we'll go ahead and get started this morning.

Greg,

we have a very special guest on Sure the show

do.

today who I will have him introduce himself.

Charlie,

thank you so much for coming on the show.

Please tell tell our audience kind of what a little bit about yourself and why you're on the show, I guess today.

Good morning. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

As you said, my name is Charlie Haar.

I am the operations coordinator for Marine Corps Marathon. I've been there a little over 10 years, specifically within operations I'm tasked with anti-terrorism force protection slash security for the events.

And that's what that's what led me to you guys.

You guys are literally the foremost experts in.

In your field.

and have relied on you guys to assist us in our planning.

Well,

Yeah.

Kyle, you're an expert in your field,

too.

Let me tell you the key to getting on the show.

Even if you were a barista at a second-class coffee place and said Brian and I were the best,

we would have had you on the show.

You'd have your own series,

you know. That was very kind of you.

Yeah,

no,

for everyone listening,

Charlie actually came out to our course at Liberty University, I think, last semester, which is actually we're recording this.

probably about a week prior before it comes out but we're actually leaving to go there here in a couple days for

Yep.

for this semester's course but our three-day course out there that their criminal justice program hosts every semester but you know you came out to that and then from there we've obviously been in touch because you want us to do a little bit more with the Marine Corps Marathon and helping you out as much as we can so our our big thing is one of the big reasons why I want to have you come on is there's people that listen to the show that are

in similar shoes uh hosting an event a public event somewhere and you know when that occurs obviously this is a for those who don't know the marine corps marathon's a big deal um it's it's a huge event every october it happens i don't know the date this year what is it october 29th or something i think or

October 29th. And just to pick on that, this is the largest public relations event for the Marine Corps.

yes that's what i'm saying not just it's a big event in general and it's a huge

It's a huge one for the Marine Corps because it's a huge PR event.

Lots of people come out and it's a big thing. I know a lot of folks who run it every year.

And so there's a lot happening. And so it's a big event out there.

And, you know, there's a lot of considerations anytime you're planning some type of public event,

especially a marathon.

Marathon has its additional complexities because it's a marathon.

So you're a 26-mile running course,

not just the actual, you know, ending and the finish line and the big convention.

ocean type you know atmosphere that's there and everything that's going on it's it's a whole road course as well so additional complexity but you know obviously like i said we want to have you on because there's folks who do this type of planning and so we kind of wanted to you had some questions uh that you had for us and and the idea is if you've got questions about stuff someone else in your shoes has those same questions or concerns and sort of things that that keep them up at night when thinking about this so i'll i'll throw to you and kind of

So ask away and then Greg and I can go through and answer them and hopefully get through most of them and we can follow up on anything if people listening have some actual follow-up questions too they can always reach out but let's go ahead Charlie and kind of let you sort of jump in into it.

Okay, I appreciate it.

You know, first, just want to start with the basics and like why human behavior, pattern recognition and analysis is important.

And it's, you know, several people know it by different names as well.

So if you guys can elaborate on why that's important.

That's a great question,

Charlie. A good softball intro.

So obviously,

back in the day.

I was involved in the development of the combat hunter program for the Marine Corps.

The combat hunter program that I specialize in were two facets of the three,

which was the human behavior profiling and then the enhanced optics and observation.

One, you can't profile something you can't see. And two,

stop being afraid of the term profile because you have a profile on your computer that you use every day.

You profile on Amazon.

And the idea is what it does is that.

helps us define behavior that we're seeing in real time and determine if there's an opportunity or if there's a threat.

That spawned into the United States Army wanting their own version.

We built ASAP, Advanced Situational Awareness Training,

and then Kodiak for BORTAC,

JTF North,

Border Hunter,

and a number of other programs of record. So the idea is that it's the only program where you're not going to learn how to ram a car,

boot a door.

flip a tire you know shoot 10 ring and x rings all day it's the theater of the mind you take a look at a situation and you're able to determine by looking at the patterns that form in this situation what likely information can be gleaned from that and the best predictor of future behavior obviously is past behavior so that plus a few things that we teach in the course help you make a guess a best guess a best estimate

on the most likely and most dangerous courses of action that are going to face you and that matters whether you're going to the 7-eleven or or driving to disney on a vacation or going into a combat zone so you're better prepared by enhancing your advanced critical thinking skills after having taken our course brian did i did i kind of get it in the

Yeah,

group

and the idea is that this is a prime example, let's say a large event like this where you have a lot of noise and a lot of...

A lot of people and most people there are just there to either watch the event or do,

you know, participate in the event or work for the event. Right. And you have some some outliers that are that are in there, some some, you know, very,

very small amount of people who may want to do some harm where there could be something as simple as maybe they just want to steal something or,

you know, take advantage of someone that's that's there or all the way up to, you know, the catastrophic I want to, you know, commit some sort of crime or terrorist act or something like that.

Something like that,

right?

So the idea is most people you don't have to worry about,

right?

So you only have to focus on those people who aren't, you know, kind of going along with what's happening because you're going to stand out.

So meaning you have to have your physical security measures that every place has to have, whether that's security checks or no bags past this point or whatever that is, you know, and that's all dependent on what your budget is,

what your resources are.

or what's allocated towards you, you know, what level it is, you know, if you're president of the United States, you get, you get everything.

I mean, you get, you get this whole gamut, you know, you're, you're the local church picnic.

Well,

you don't, you don't have a whole heck

Right.

of a lot.

But you can kind of set up some basic rings of security and then we focus on obviously the human behavior aspect because that's something everyone can do no matter who it is. You're attending the event as a spectator. You're working at the event as a food vendor. It doesn't matter what your role is.

It's to kind of get people on board to understand,

well,

if someone's here with some ill intent,

they have some nefarious intent,

no matter how small or large that intent is,

whatever it is.

They're going to kind of give themselves away in certain areas,

right? They have to act and behave in a certain manner that won't fit the baseline for what's normal.

So if I can learn a little bit, right, I can say, well,

I can allocate my resources better,

right?

I can say, well, this group, they're going along with the crowd,

but this one person over here, maybe this is what we can investigate right now. And again, still,

most of the time it's going to be nothing,

right?

Or it's going to be able to be explained,

but having the ability.

The ability to narrow that window down, to whittle it down to just the few elements in the environment that I need to focus on,

that's the huge advantage of understanding this in HBPR in general. That's what it gives you.

That's great.

You guys both alluded to this a little bit in kind of the introductory comments and then the last answer and stuff.

So obviously our event is unique in that it covers 26.2 miles plus start and finish areas and stuff.

We can't run underneath an iron dome,

limited resources,

all those things.

So can you talk about how this can be used as a force multiplier for an event?

Yeah,

of course.

So this morning at 930 Central time,

Mrs.

Doreen Brainard from someplace in Wisconsin is going to go shopping and nobody's going to attack her because nobody has any idea who she is or what she's going for.

And she has no significant role in world politics.

The problem is you're the United States Marine Corps and this is going to be a marathon and it's run for a significant amount of time.

time, and it's a high-profile event.

So you're exactly right.

You can't say,

hey, listen,

we're going to host this event,

but nobody can come.

And you also have an advantage because being a marathon, if somebody was intending on making a big splash with a criminal or terrorist event,

they would have to choose a specific location at the marathon and logically the way humans think, and this is a function of all humans counter planning,

doing the type of planning that you're doing, Charlie,

but for the dark side that, you know, a member of the Dark Arts Council.

What they're going to do is they're going to say,

okay, well,

the beginning,

that's the best bang for my buck, no pun intended,

or the end of the race or a place where it goes by a grandstand. You have 26 and a half miles that you have to cover and you have to outthink the horrible. So that's not an enviable position.

But what you also have is you have hundreds of thousands,

if not millions of eyes on those areas.

And the people that go to specific areas know those areas. Yes, they're habitual areas back to the combat hunter training and they're connected by natural lines of drift,

these named area of interest that are your route.

But the people that go there are going to watch the event. They're coming out to see somebody specific.

typically race or to cheer on America, to cheer on the Marine Corps,

very,

very common and lofty goals for all those folks,

and they're not there to do any harm.

So what Brian alluded to just a little bit ago is that people that do bad things have to do bad things to line up the things that they're about to do. So if you're going to steal a car,

you have to crack the lock or break a window. If you're going to shoplift,

you have to, you know, get into a position where you're not seen by the cameras.

The security guard,

if you're going to do a hit and run,

sort of a strong armed robbery,

you're going to have to get a little bit of a run on a person that's not paying attention,

blindside and bowl them over and then have an escape route.

So that's what complicates it for the bad people that are out there.

They have to go off script.

And once they do,

once they deviate from what's normal,

clinically normal for an environment like a marathon,

they can't help but stick out. Now.

You know the terrorism criminals over the time from Trojan horse,

you know, which which ended up being a vehicle born ID right in an attack.

For every tactic,

technique or procedure we try to come up with, somebody else is going to be smarter.

So how do we stop that?

Well,

anybody leaving anything behind,

parking a bicycle and walking away,

that's a high dollar value item. Nobody does that.

Leaving a backpack and walking away.

going and starting to probe an area where there's already security to try to circumvent that security.

That's not how people are.

Now, a person might climb up the backside of a bleacher to get a better view,

but they're not going to go in between the fences into a dark,

secluded alley so they have some surreptitious hide from which they can see the race.

So what we do is we make sure that the folks that are going to be working the race,

no matter whether,

you know, the person is a...

loss prevention or the person is sweeping up afterwards that they have a set of things these cues that they can see in an environment and once those cues start to come together we can say hey there's a high likelihood that something bad is going to happen in this specific area so that helps narrow down that vast area that you're watching and enlist the aid of the folks that are showing up to help you improve your security posture

And kind of what I think about it this way, and especially.

actually at an event like that so you take it as if everyone was wearing the same exact clothes at this event right say everyone was dressed identical okay and so there's really no way to tell them apart in terms of anything other than that right they dress the same let's say they all look the same even well just based on their behavior you could show up and take a look around and go okay well

That person's a spectator. That person's a runner.

That person works here in some sort of operations role.

Oh, that person's likely a food vendor.

That person's a delivery driver.

So if I get rid of all that and just look at what their role is in the situation,

we all take on a role when we're at these events.

So if you're a spectator,

you will take on the role of a spectator. If you are there marshalling people,

you will take on that role.

And you will embody everything that has to do with it.

you may get distracted because it's a race right you know you know you get caught up in it if you're working there and you're supposed to be you know watching the crowd but you're watching the race or something right uh so that just has to do with attention but the idea is if you're there for an inferious intent you will take on that that's what you're there for that's the whole Definitely. purpose so that's going to be different than everyone else and and and the way this works and and there's all kinds of different examples but the the one that a lot of people know because

well because we're talking about marathons is the is the the boston marathon and you know you had the sarnayev brothers who are dressed almost identical to each other in there but it's it's different than than everyone else watching the race right even the people showing up you look at the photos even the people showing up to watch the race many of them are dressed like what they do they got their running shoes on their running gear they're not even running that day but they're but because of how humans are like okay that running is something i do and i'm going to watch

to watch it that this is what we wear. This is sort of our uniform.

So you had that difference.

And then what they were looking at, their intent was very, very clearly different.

So even their functional field of view and orientation.

So if you think about it very simply,

a marathon,

people are doing what?

They're watching the race or moving to a spot where they can go watch more of the race.

I mean, and so who's not?

Well, the people who are working aren't. The people who are working security shouldn't be right. They should be looking.

be looking up and out uh that delivery driver has got to bring something over here to this area they're going to be acting differently so everyone will create sort of their own little um uh way of doing things within that context so you really don't have to look at everyone out there just like who's not going along with the crowd in this situation right who who's not setting up their food prep uh tent area who's not setting up this why are people lingering around here you

here when that's not the area where you linger around at or you know what that area is only for the athletes the runners all right why are these other people trying to gain access into there so what you're just looking is those sort of deviations from from what you should expect to see and this gets into sort of anticipation of what what are people likely going to act like what should I expect someone showing up to watch the marathon what are they going to behave like what are they going to be doing

and if you put yourself into going to some event that you've gone to whether it's a concert or a thing at the at the july 4th you know a picnic you know it's a pound square it doesn't matter what it is you behave in that way and you become that person it's like it's like you ever go like window shopping down one of those like city you know when they block off the city streets and they do like a farmer's market or something like that and you're not even buying anything necessarily but you're still doing what you're still going along look

looking at everything as if you were because that's sort of your role and so there's only so many people in the situation who aren't and those are the ones you can focus on and determine what their their intent is so so rather than having to go man i've got all these people i've got all this stuff happening you know everyone knows what their role is right you can go to someone else who's supporting the event who's setting up and they can tell you by looking around who else is setting it up

Even if they don't know the person, they go,

oh, yeah,

that person is setting up the grandstands over here or they're likely setting up the start line where those folks are finishing or setting up the finish area because they figured it out tacitly just just implicitly by their behavior in that event.

So if everyone in their group knows to look for just other people in their group and they'll start to see things that don't make sense in their environment. So when you're talking about that human behavior and getting all people involved as well,

it can be every it can be a shared responsibility and it doesn't have to be, you know, a formal long training process for every single person because you can't do that. You can't can't have everyone come.

Hey, everyone involved in the Marine Corps Marathon,

we're gonna do a week of training together.

Okay,

that'd be great, right?

That would be taking it very seriously. And I think you would be very successful doing that.

But is that is that economically even possible?

Is that you know, logistically even possible? So you have to kind of what we do is those simple ways of a priming people to kind of let's look for a few other things above and beyond what your role is in the situation.

Does that kind of make sense?

And I would add this,

Charlie,

I would say to dovetail on what Brian said,

if you're reading between the lines and you're reading exactly what he's saying,

we're not talking about people that are quirky.

We're not talking about people that are different,

that are dressed differently,

that have, you know, face tattoos and, you know, bright purple hair.

That has nothing to do with anybody.

That's a person's form of self-expression and it's never indicative of their human behavior.

human behavior characteristics are how you act, not how you speak,

not how you stand,

not how you walk.

That's the things that you're doing.

So if you're not going with the flow,

there's got to be a reason that you're not.

And that would interest me.

So if you're not standing in line to go to the bathroom or standing in line to buy food or standing in line to cheer,

what are you standing in line for?

So those are the types of things that we're talking about rather than a person wearing a message shirt or...

you know, a person that decides to comb or not comb their hair on that day. So we want to make sure that folks know that the patterns we're talking about are human behavior patterns that just don't fit the mold.

Yeah, that's a great point.

And you've mentioned before that that can prejudice you in how you look at things and so on.

So thank you for sharing that.

So you cover a lot of this in the last question, but just different scenarios that where something seems off and perhaps to like a deeper dive.

So, you know, a novice coming into this, you guys are experts in human behavior.

I've seen some of the photos that you've.

you've just sat around and people watched and been able to observe

Yeah,

at a very high level so beyond just the surface level like you know like a deeper dive of things that that may seem off or they're upon closer look you know if you're if you're not paying attention they seem common but upon closer

yep

look they are a little bit off and and

Better nefarious actors are I suspect are better at concealing their intent

So, you know things like that if that Yeah, makes sense

no,

Charlie, right on.

So we hear a lot of things about the gray man.

The harder you try to hide something,

the more you stick out in the crowd.

So most people are just going along to get along and all humans are the same all over the face of the planet.

So if you think in terms of that, these big picture things,

almost everybody that's at an up and out event is going to be up and out. I'm going to be looking at the race. I'm going to be looking at the people.

I'm going to be looking at the helicopters and the airplanes flying over and the flags that are waving. So if I had somebody that's focused on the down and in.

And listen,

if you're listening to my voice and you've heard Brian and I before,

these terms are simple.

If you've never heard these terms,

think about it. I'm down and in and focused on my lap on macrame while the huge parade is going by and Santa's throwing candy and all the kids are trying to run out into traffic.

That doesn't fit.

So I want to know why that doesn't fit.

And you know what?

That doesn't make granny a terrorist.

But

Right.

if one person out of the 3000 that now I want to focus that extra few seconds on when I'm walking by.

Bye.

So anybody that's not actively engaged in what's going on. Now, look, there's going to be people that are completely surprised by the event. Charlie, you've worked it for over 10 years.

You know what I'm talking about.

What do you mean the road is closed?

And they're going to be angry with whatever's going on.

That's OK.

That's to be expected.

So when Brian was talking about anticipated signals,

I'm anticipating that if I can't get from point A to point B and it screws up my commute,

I'm going to be pissed off.

Well, it's OK.

It's OK to be pissed off. It's OK to be angry as long as you're.

acting up,

but you're not acting out.

So the person that's storming through the crowd or parking and leaving their car running or showing that they're wanting more than just their say.

All humans want their say, and it's okay to let them vent a little bit. But if you want your say in your way,

now guess what? It's time for you to leave. You got to go somewhere else and watch another event.

So I would say stick with the simple.

Work simple to complex.

We all want to look in the crowd and see the bald headed person stroking the white cat going, oh, it's about to the bomb is about to ignite Mr.

Bond.

That never happens. So so stop looking for that and look for things that just don't fit.

This person is aiming the wrong way with their camera and filming something that's not on the parade route.

These two people are talking to each other, but not discussing anything with anybody else that's around them.

And they're both carrying heavy backpacks. Shinzo Abe is assassinated in Japan,

the number one favorite leader of Japan for so many years.

And everybody claps when he announces, hey, and here's Shinzo Abe,

except for the one guy in the crowd that keeps working and lurking and looking and trying to wind closer.

Ariana Grande concert,

you have a person that's walking around with the biggest piece of blue luggage in town that anybody's ever seen, not near a bus station or an airport or a luggage store. Yeah.

Yeah. And what does he do?

He stops just before he gets an Ariana concert and puts on this huge camper's backpack and starts working his way into the arena.

Those things don't fit any day.

So not just Marine Corps Marathon Day, Charlie, they wouldn't fit Tuesday.

They wouldn't fit next Thursday.

So the idea is those are the things that we want to bring up with somebody.

To give teeth to the argument,

if I see something,

say something,

that would be something that I would see and I would go over to somebody and I would say, look,

everybody else here is walking.

Those kids are running.

Everybody's walking this way. Those two kids are running that way.

I'm interested.

And then your guards or your security or your officer would tell you,

hey, thanks very much. I appreciate that.

And they would go investigate it or they would choose not to. But you've done your part. You've done your part raising.

in the collective conscious of the group and saying this a vehicle setting idling with nobody else around that's interesting to me uh first of all it's liable to get stolen in the area where the marathon's going to be uh second of all hey where is this person i hope they didn't have a heart attack somewhere that's interesting to me so those things that a clever person would look at and they go that just doesn't fit my day

And you bring that up with another person and say, this is what I'm seeing.

And that person goes,

you know what? We got some.

Now,

what we're not doing,

no conspiracy theory.

What we're not doing is saying it's us versus them because that's not going to work and it sure is not going to work for the Marine Corps Marathon.

But just being a little more aware of your surroundings can pay huge dividends into something. And most likely, as Brian said,

it's going to be a criminal act.

It's going to be a pickpocket.

It's going to be somebody that's going to steal your purse or something that you have with it because you're not paying attention.

Not a big protracted attack.

Yeah.

And one of those things kind of Greg brought up is, you know, when we talk about it's hard to get into a lot of this without sort of doing some sort of formal sort of training or giving some examples, but even just talking about it, you know, mission focus is a big one. And so when someone's mission focus,

it means they have some clear intent.

They are start to lack any sort of arousal or

or have recognition of any arousal in their environment they lose sort of uh where they're at time but but mission focus isn't something negative if you're working there and you've got to get over to a certain area you know everyone's seen someone oh that person is bit or they're in a hurry to get somewhere or they're they're bumping into people because they don't even see them because oh man i'm supposed to be over at this start line by this time and i got to kick off this that mission focus is huge because it sticks out of that crowd at an event like this because

if you're a spectator you don't have mission focus i mean you're excited you technically do it in a sense to watching maybe the race or you're so locked in that you might bump into someone but but if it's not towards whatever the parade is going by like greg was talking about with the you know santa claus coming by you should be focused on that you know if they're not focused on that in the environment why is it so you can get mission focus like i said if you've ever been busy you're you're coming you got three bags on your arms you're coming out of the grocery store and you're digging for your keys and you're staring at where your car

Your car is in the parking lot and you got to get home because you're running late and you're almost getting hit by a car in the parking.

That's just you've we've all seen that person or been that person before.

And what you're seeing is that mission focus. Well.

Why do you have mission focus?

Because if you don't have a specific mission right now, then you probably shouldn't have it. And that's the idea.

And I don't necessarily know if it's something bad,

but I can determine that just by literally scanning a crowd and seeing that, right? I can see those small indicators in people that are different than that baseline.

And those are the things that make my job easier because then I go,

okay,

well, I only need to figure out those three people that I picked up on.

on not these other 50 that are standing around waiting for the runners to go by.

And I'm not oversimplifying it. It really is that simple.

Again,

you might be waiting on whatever that delivery is for that next whatever thing you're setting up, but you're going to show mission focus if you're sitting there waiting for it.

So those are the things that I can investigate and just talk to people about.

So I would add to this, Charlie,

I would add orientation.

Our eyes are in the front of our head for a good reason. That's why our nose and our mouth.

mouth are all of those things have physiological requirements to sense our environment and then when we see light motion or edges we orient to it with our body and our feet are our oldest sense makers so they're going to point towards what's interesting to us so I'll give you an example Brian and I were working a caper where this private school was letting out at a certain time and we're adding a level of complexity by providing a security

a check on the building for lack of a better term and a person comes over and says watch this guy over here this guy is not watching school he's not watching the kids he's not watching the playground or the kids lining up to get let go he's looking down that street and that's just orienting towards a different area and he said well what's his orientation they said what do you mean so we walked over and we stood on an angle that was equal to this person looking the direction that they were looking and that's where they had parked their car

and there was no parking on that side of the street so as interested as they were in picking up their kid that day they also didn't want to have their car ticketed or towed so now they had the orientation of staring in that direction so most times if you anticipate what the person is looking at and then you go and you do just a rudimentary investigation stand there you don't have to do a vulnerability assessment you just have to stand there for a minute and say wow

That person's looking in that area.

Now, remember,

people have problems.

I have a hearing loss,

so I'm not going to respond to some noise off to my right side.

I may not orient as quickly as everybody else. So don't try to make a round peg fit a square hole.

Take a look at the totality of the circumstances that are playing out and you will get from thousands of people down to the three or four people that keep sticking up. No matter how much I shake my head and look away,

they keep sticking up.

is doing something or acting in a specific manner that the behavior doesn't fit the scenario. So when I have incongruent behavior and it's not fitting the scenario and I've got any of those other things down and in, mission focus,

a person oriented towards something that they shouldn't be oriented to,

and then I've got any of those other indicators.

Hey, sir, you left your bag behind or the car is still running.

Now, guess what,

Charlie,

now you have a good argument to anybody,

even if let's say somebody says,

well, I don't want to get sued for saying something.

Heck,

I just laid out a perfect menu of items that any reasonable person would look at and say,

I,

too, would be suspicious of that behavior.

And that's what we're saying.

Suspicious behavior is just that.

And it's more likely, much more likely to stick out and especially at a big event like this.

Remember,

the bigger the event,

the bigger our emotions,

the bigger things that have to get done to get in there.

And so you'll really be able to measure those against a fidelity-filled baseline like your marathon.

Awesome.

Just a real quick follow-up to that, and then I'd like to dig deeper into the mission focus that we talked about.

So occasionally we talked about the open and outward actions that our spectators would have,

you know, and then maybe there's the pissed off motorist or what have you.

Occasionally, we'll see people that may be nervous for their loved one,

you know, like they're checking their watch, they're, you know, they're looking around or what have you.

You address it a little bit with the person staring at the no parking area,

you know, can you.

Talk further about something that seems kind of out of place at first,

but actually fits the environment naturally.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So here's a good one, Charlie.

You have a person and they're tapping their foot.

Okay.

Tapping their foot means I want to walk.

They're seated and tapping their foot rather briskly. That means they'd like to get up and walk away.

And now I've got my briefcase on my lap and I keep checking my watch and I'm looking at the parade route and everybody in the business is going to say, well, there's your bomber.

goes around that person and throw a blast blanket on them and I say hey there's your uber waiting for the lift you get what I'm saying I'm looking the person supposed to be driving down and I'm doing the mental countdown calendar people with an agenda will demonstrate their agenda autonomically they won't even know that they're doing it now the difference is the direct difference is a person doing a surreptitious look they're peeking around the corner they're trying to stand back in the shadows

making sure that they've got a phalanx of other humans while they're doing something.

If you're waiting for an Uber,

that's not what you'd be doing. You need to be seen or that guy's going to go somewhere else. So most human beings.

never try to hide in plain sight.

Most human beings never try to mask their true intent.

When you go into a city market to pick out some cling peaches, you don't go and stand by the pantyhose aisle in the undershorts until the cling peaches free up and then low crawl over and grab them. That would be incongruent for that type of place.

So most people are doing exactly what it is that they need to do to get through their day.

And when you watch them just for an extended period of time.

If I'm telling you, Charlie, if you watch a person for 10 seconds, you can come up with all kind of different things that might be happening.

You watch a person for another 30 seconds, all of a sudden they all fall by the wayside and you'll see them wave to their friend and go over and get a photo with somebody or get a hug.

That protracted time that you're watching is key because the longer that you watch that anomalous person,

the more behaviors are going to start sticking out.

You're going to go, this is something I need to report.

And look,

not everything you report is going to be something.

Sometimes it's going to be a person that has a mental health challenge.

Sometimes it's going to be a kid that's lost and it's a good thing that you're reporting.

Very, very rarely. As a matter of fact,

it'll be remarkable if it's a criminal act or if it's a terrorist act.

But without reporting it, how will you know?

So the idea is if you're more alert and aware and you're more verbose saying,

hey, for example, even in a crowd saying,

hey, sir,

you're leaving your bag behind.

Okay,

that can change the entire calculus of a situation and out something that's about to happen.

So I say that you just can't be clever and alert.

You have to say something.

You have to be able to add up those pieces together. And that comes from giving it a little more time than you're used to give it.

Give it and standing in a position where you could draw a reasonable conclusion that makes sense, Brian.

Yeah,

and it kind of reminds me of my sister.

She's run the Chicago Marathon several times, and I've done it before where I'll jump in the last six miles with her or something like that because I'm not running a marathon. That's too far to run.

I'm not that excited about running.

I did plenty when I was in the Marine Corps,

so I'm good.

But what I do then too at certain areas is I either wait for her at marches, you can kind of track them a little bit, and I have to stand there and wait.

and wait for it to go by and and then you know obviously i'm taking photos i went some of the downtown areas where it gets real busy and so i'm taking photos but here's the thing

So I'm because of what I do for a living,

I'm taking photos of the crowd and all this other stuff. So sure enough, I'm doing that and I'm by myself at this point when I'm doing it and I look over and there's kind of someone who's hanging back in the shadows a little bit right in that negative space kind of near me and he's like eyeballing me.

So I'm like looking around I was like, okay, this guy and I look at him I'm like, oh, hey,

man, I'm just taking photos and it was he was just plainclothes police officer just work in the crowd and he saw me and whatever it was I was doing.

doing caught up more where he had to take an extra second go this guy's not going along was i wasn't fighting my way up to that front barrier to try and look at the race i was hanging back a little bit and taking photos of things that no one was taking photos about and so those those little small cues is kind of what we're talking about and and that is all defined within in in the context that you're viewing it but greg said the perfect thing you know

just a little bit of sustained observation is usually going to in

begin to answer the question right uh and if it doesn't then maybe this is something we have to investigate and that falls down to what your policies and procedures are and everything but

Exactly.

you know it's very simple just to walk up and say hey how's it going to someone you know i mean and you're gonna then you know find out what the deal is hey are you waiting on someone or you look like you're lost you know those things and people go yeah i can't find my friend they're supposed to be here blah blah blah you know it usually works itself out or but but

identifying those things is is huge and not not passing it up and going oh they're probably just doing this like yeah they probably are but you better find out

And I agree with Brian on that point, Charlie, this would be like my hit list,

no pun intended.

I see a person on a roof along the parade route or the run route.

That's all stop right there.

And then I mentioned it to somebody and the copper goes,

yeah,

that's a SWAT or secret service or something like that.

Good.

I'm fine.

What I did is I see something that thing is egregiously bad compared to other events that have happened historically.

And now I tell a visible sign of authority and the person says,

relax,

we got it.

got it from here that's beautiful that's what you're supposed to be doing now everybody wants to gain an advantage so everybody wants to be first for the crapper everybody wants to be first for the hot dog everybody wants to be first for the free stuff that's thrown out so jockeying your position within a line or getting a better seat in the grandstand or or getting a seat not assigned to you that's closer up that that to me is not a really big thing having a person after you've mentioned that to them stay in that position and then continue to jockey for it now we're talking about something that might be

might be out of my ken so what do i do when something is a little bit bigger than i am i go to the visible sign of authority you know how many coppers work these events you know that there's going to be uniformed marines not just handing cups of water but they're going to be looking and actively going out there so the people that are intent on doing something bad have to not only navigate them but now they have to navigate you an alert person that's in the crowd right and then they have to pick an area along the crowd

to make their mark so what we want to do is make all of those things harder for a bad person to do and easier for a good person to relax and enjoy the event and the way that you do that is anytime one of your things gets triggered i don't know what that smell is

But it smells like nail polish remover, and it's very strong at this part of the race.

And if I can't account for that, I'm going to go tug on that officer's sleeve and say, hey, officer,

I don't know what that smell is.

And then he says,

hey, that's how you make whatever.

Go along,

boy.

Then I'm going to go along.

But the idea is I'm not going to be the one that just stands back there and says,

man,

coulda, woulda, shoulda. My dad,

Marine as well,

was that person all the time.

My dad was the one that would walk up and go,

it's probably nothing.

And he would mention it to people,

and you know what? That it's probably nothing but is the difference between discovering a queue in a crowd that might unravel a criminal episode.

So you've got to say something.

If you see something and that thing that you're seeing bucks up against convention and doesn't fit the scenario,

you have to say something.

Right.

We talked about mission focus earlier.

We train our Marines and our volunteers on what they need to do, and inevitably they become uber focused on the task at hand.

Mm

So what's

-hmm.

the role of, we've got law enforcement,

we've got security,

we've got out the wazoo, but we've got the extra eyes and ears that are better than closed circuit television that are working the event.

Yep.

What is the role of the person working in the event? They're not working in a security aspect,

but what is the role of that as it relates to recognizing these behaviors and then kind of a piggyback on that?

What is the role of the spectator, which we don't have training exercises with,

etc.

Yeah, that's a great thing.

So here and I'll start by saying this.

Stop being hyper alert in situations that don't warrant it.

before you get to the event the parking lot is where you're going to see smell feel taste all the danger that's going to happen in an event if a person's going to bring a gun that's where you're going to see it if a person's going to drag a bomb that's where you're going to see him start loading all those things up and people miss those cues everybody wants to go to Boston and the Czarnav brothers and and the idea is that what they don't do is look at them carrying heavy items through the the race what could those items have been

were they amplifiers that they were going to have and then have a speaker at the end now what we're doing is we're making conjecture fit don't be hyper alert and everything that's going to play out it's going to be logical you ever watch uh uh these movies charlie the the oceans 11 12 13 15 where they got to have the gymnast and the giraffe and then they got to have this person that speaks uh portuguese underwater and if you don't have those things it's going to fail well the other night i know yeah sleep was overrated brian and i don't sleep

sleep much just like you was the the movie blown away and during blown away timey lee jones is the uh terrorist that not only breaks out of the hardest prison to break out of in scotland but somehow makes it to boston and ends up being the janitor for the bomb squad for the boston police well they had to go through hollywood had to go through and make all of those things fit or they wouldn't have been able to get the tension and and you know have all of those uh dramatic

panic bits going.

That's not how life works out.

You got a person that's got a grievance and that person is going to drive to the location and then walk in and get as close as they can and then they're going to have it out with that person.

Those things create ripples. Look for those atmospheric changes in the crowd where the ripples start occurring.

So you can stop it and invest the least amount of calories in the parking lot instead of right in the middle of the parade route.

So that's what I would say.

Don't be hyper alert.

Do your job. That means you're paying attention to the people, not to the race.

And if you're there to pay attention to the race, then just add that little bit of a nod to once in a while taking a left and a right with your head and seeing if everything's good.

fit uh smoke is never a good thing now here's here's the thing for the the race the marathon that you're doing there's a huge cannon blast at the beginning to start that stuff so that is going to fit in the context and relevance of the start of the race but if i'm getting gunshots and other explosions during a race or smoke in an area that might be something to report so so don't get dumber because the event is bigger

And don't get more excited because the event is bigger.

Just make sure that you maintain a level of alertness. Hey,

where's my kid standing right now?

Hey,

am I far enough back from the curb I'm not going to get hit by a car?

If you can maintain that level of alertness, you can spot a bad guy in the crowd no matter where you go in the world.

Isn't that right,

Brian?

Yeah, and the way you look at it is we delegate the security responsibility to certain people like, okay, they're on security,

it's law enforcement.

enforcement you know at that you probably have all kinds of other folks you know that that's their role and one they can't

be everywhere.

They can't

Yep.

see everything and it's their job to deal with something, but it's not just their job to see something or observe something.

And this is why we always try to prime people with the idea that safety and security is everyone's responsibility and anything you're doing, even just to ensure the normal safety of a crowd of people not getting hit by a car,

not getting trampled, not falling,

not tripping.

tripping you know i mean those things also help with the security posture it's not just about their their individual safety so we always like to say it's you know it's everyone's responsibility so even so you have all of these other folks that are working the event probably a lot of them volunteering or voluntold to be there if they're the marines but

Sure

the idea is you know you they have whatever their job is but that's not their only role hey you're also here for the eyes and the ears of the of the parade and what's going on you

on and and that helps not especially for the marines there you know they know it like hey you know you're you're in uniform uh or or if you're not you know people are going to know you're a marine like you're you're you're riding for the brand at that point you are a public image and people are going to expect it and marines know that they get told that but you know you forget that sometimes so it's it's operating that way as being sort of that good shepherd hey i'm gonna i'm gonna look out for everyone that's here even though my job is busy and i've got all these other things to do

A big picture is what's important here, and that's the safety and security of everyone at this event.

And if I make that paramount for everyone's role,

I don't care if you're, you know, cooking hot dogs on the grill,

right?

You still have certain safety things you want to take care of even within your own job there.

You know, you don't want someone to burn themselves because they,

you know, the grill was too close to where people were walking. I mean, those little things matter,

but it creates a culture of awareness and safety. And then...

you know you have that people are more likely to report something that they saw that was odd because you know you go back to whatever event you want to talk about especially if it happened in public there are plenty of people at all those events who go you know i saw something or you know i thought this was odd at the time but i didn't say anything because i didn't think

No, that that's the point to stop. And if you get people to go, hey, that's more important than you getting the water bottles there on time, it really is because that's where prevention comes in to go probably nothing,

but I'm just going to take another lap around the block to check it out.

And that eliminates, you know, so many potential dangerous things from happening.

I it's sometimes it really is that simple at these large events because you have so many people working there.

and they're great co-opt all of them get them all involved and then when it reaches that threshold they can walk over to the whosoever role it is in security to say hey this is what i saw this is why i thought it was weird i have something to do can you go check it out you know i mean that's their job then they can go okay got it you know they they now have a mission to do so um i i think just creating that sort of environment where everyone is first and foremost it's safety and security you can't have an event

That if it's not safe and it's not secure, we won't have one next year if something happens.

So that's more important than what your specific task is right now.

Yep.

I would agree.

Charlie,

I would say don't overcomplicate the job of the coppers that are going to be there as well.

So leave your pet at home.

Things like don't fly your drone near the opening or near the closing.

Follow the rules. There are rules that will be printed in the paper well before and there's going to be posters that are going to be on walls and people will be a parade marshal.

And marathon marshals will be telling you, you can't stand there. Listen,

folks, if you just follow the rules,

then anybody that's not a rule follower will stick out twice as fast.

So you have an obligation just to do the right thing. And you would be surprised at how much better an event goes if you just follow the rules.

Awesome.

Thank you, gentlemen.

We've mentioned see something, say something a couple times in here. You guys mentioned it in Lynchburg at the course.

It's become a little bit passe,

I think, over time where it's just kind of a catchphrase and stuff.

How do we restore meaning,

and we use a grander term,

how do we restore meaning to this common phrase?

See something,

say something.

Yeah,

and you know, Charlie,

it's great that you bring it up because Brian and I have never been huge proponents of it. That's why you heard us bring it up in Lynchburg as we say that there's certain platitudes that we put out there that really don't have any teeth.

So if you're going to have that program,

then give an example of those programs.

Look,

if you provide information and that information stops a crime,

we as the city of Arlington, we as the city of, you know, wherever in the United States.

What we're going to do is we're going to pay for that information and we'll thank you in other ways. We'll help your kid get a scholarship. We'll do that. That's what we've never done. What we've always done is we said,

hey, you know, do this or there might be a boogeyman.

Well,

we do that with smoking.

How's that work to quit smoking?

It's going to take more generations. Yeah, somebody's going to say less people are smoking now.

Yeah,

and some of those people have quadrupled the amount that they're smoking,

even though the packet of cigarettes is 15 bucks a pack and we know it's bad for us.

So just saying there's a consequence isn't enough.

What it is, is we have to make those people feel like, look.

And coppers get calls all the time on stuff that they don't want to do because they've got other real cop work that they need to do.

So you walking up and going,

hey, officer,

I really don't want to tell you this, but that car up there is idling in its left wheel of the curb.

If that copper thinks that that information might be credible and that could lead to them solving a crime or stopping a terrorist act,

they're going to love that information.

Trust me, you need to be the one that's giving it to them.

But there also should be some sort of payback from the community.

that says,

hey, listen,

we really appreciate your assistance on these.

We haven't gotten there yet. As a community, we've kind of let it fall by the wayside and we have the signs up, but we don't really follow up with the people and tell them how important it is.

So PSA, social media,

before big events like this get out there and tell somebody what the consequences are.

If you don't say something,

bad things could happen.

But again,

that's not enough for somebody to actually take action.

But if you do something,

there could be a big cash reward in there for you.

for you and the you know love of your community uh we you got to understand that we have to advertise it better and in america where you advertise everything naked and afraid and crappy tv shows we haven't cracked the code yet on how to you know how to make something this important uh stand out in a crowd

Yeah. And again,

it kind of goes with having everyone you have working at that event can communicate with people there.

I mean, you can talk just talking and reminding folks,

hey,

we don't want you coming down here,

folks,

because you're in a trip and fall or this area is an access.

This is why giving just explaining to people other than just,

hey, you can't go there or hey, you can't do this.

You know, it's always that.

That sort of customer service aspect is one of the greatest ways to identify any type of threats, because when you have people that are communicating and then you ease everyone's kind of mind a little bit, not rather than making them nervous,

you know, you get a little bit more buy in from the crowd,

you get buy in from everyone who's attending the event.

Now they want to, you know, be part of the side of right versus just being a passive bystander, you know.

everyone wants to be the hero so so make them the hero i mean that's what greg is talking about here it's saying hey look this you folks know it's a it's a large event this could be a potential threat it's probably not but with your help we can make sure that it's not and and even just when people are arriving that communication aspect that customer service with the different folks that work there just talking to people and getting them talking and talking to each other well now all of a sudden that community within this event starts to grow you

and then communities are really good at identifying people that don't belong in their community you know what i mean you really are you go hey wait a minute this person over here is operating on a different wavelength what's going on there's a reason for that don't know what that reason is but you don't need to know what the reason is right that's when someone else can can intervene or or we can figure it out from there and so so have sort of sort of building that culture beyond hey if you see something say something i mean that's

it's great but you know what am i supposed to see what am i supposed to say who am i supposed to say it to that that's the problem and and so it people often sort of over complicate it or think well i i don't know what to do or i don't know what to say or then you have the the person that's reports you know reporting everything hey there's a piece of trash out of place over there it's like okay we'll throw it away you know what i mean you have to you're going to get everyone in between but just getting people on board and telling them that

that hey they can they get to be part of the solution um that's huge everyone wants to be on the side of right everyone wants to do the right thing we want to be you know the the hero we want to be the one that that stops an attack we want to be someone that that prevents someone from getting hurt so getting people on board with that and doing that hey safety is everyone's responsibility remember that first i know especially it being the marine corps marathon a lot of military folks there especially a lot of marines like they're like yeah we hear that all the time we get it you know it's like no no look

Oh, look,

this

Remember.

is a little bit different.

You're with your families like let's and what you're doing is basically turning everyone into sort of a little sensor.

And I would rather have, you know, 10,000 small sensors at that event than, you know, 50 of the highest trained, most accurate sensors because those thousand are just going to cover a lot more ground and they're going to see a lot more.

So so that's the idea is creating that that sort of that culture of awareness and it eases it does two things. It eases the tension a little bit.

that wanted make your job a little bit easier and then now you have all of these active participants versus just passive bystanders and if you can kind of turn the tide a little bit that way you'd be amazed at what else you'll prevent even down to petty crime to people getting hurt to you know a truck backing into something you know i mean when everyone is involved and actively involved people stop that stuff people go hey wait a minute where is

Whereas,

you know, sometimes when they're not and it's a big area,

well,

that's a construction site.

I don't belong there. I shouldn't say anything.

And it's like, no, you could have stopped that truck from backing into that wall.

But but we don't because we fall into that role that I was talking about. Right.

And so if I make that role an active role,

people will take ownership of it.

And what Brian means by community is a community.

So people that are coming out for the concert,

that's a community of people that like that sort of music and the type of atmosphere that's going on.

The people that come to a marathon,

a very, very specialized community.

Now you've opened that up and said,

yeah, but there's going to be servicemen and specifically Marines that are there.

So what you're doing is creating these facets on this thing that we're looking at.

And it's a community.

So a lot of people come up and they're the threat as well, the lone wolf factor.

You know why lone wolves are so hard?

Because they're lone wolf.

They're alone.

They're hermits. They don't hang around people very often. So somebody can't say,

hey, you're writing a manifesto and you smell like bomb making material.

So are they harder to catch?

Absolutely they're harder to catch.

But you know what you do?

What you do is you increase the netting, the cyclone fencing around.

by increasing the number of sensors,

every soldier a sensor, every Marine a collector.

And what that means is that even the thoughts that are in their crowd are going,

hey, what's old surly Joe doing over there? Because the cat lady doesn't belong in an event like this. And they wouldn't want to come to an event like this. So that person whose behavior is so egregiously different than anybody else, it takes you five minutes to walk over and go,

hi,

how are you?

Why are you here today?

And now you know what? You'll find some information and you can add to that information and it becomes intelligence. Or.

Or he can say, no, I'm on the wrong, you know, tack completely.

This person just wants to be can't anchors today,

which you're going to find as well.

Some people show up just to piss somebody else off. Right.

And so the idea is, though,

that the crowd, the community,

the momentum,

the app tempo of the folks that are there can have a determined effect and making those people stay away and making it a wonderful, happy event,

which it's supposed to be.

with no or very limited danger.

Awesome.

Gentleman, I could listen to, I could converse and listen to you guys all day. I'm always amazed every time that I talk to you guys, but I'm going to stop here to respect your all's time and I appreciate it very much.

But, Charlie,

I'd like to throw something at you too, just an old throwback, somebody that worked with you early on, somebody that worked with me early on in the formative stages of combat hunter.

Hunter J.

Baldino,

a great Marine that really helped out a lot on your side and sort of a connected fiber.

We've never been in the same room,

you,

Brian,

Charlie,

and I and Jay.

And then Brian,

you've never met Jay,

okay?

But, you know, the idea is that we wouldn't have been having this conversation. You probably wouldn't have dropped in in Virginia if it wasn't for Jay.

Now,

saying that,

there's a whole bunch of Marines that are now going to grab and beat him because we brought his name up on there.

I know. But he did great things. There's a whole bunch of people behind the scenes in a marathon like this. And Charlie,

most of them are standing behind you or next to you and pushing all in the same direction.

We want to thank all of those folks for what they've done and pay it forward and thank them for what's coming up here in a couple of weeks in October.

And, you know, to.

kind of uh really get into some of the things that that you you can do and with your folks that that they can do as well i mean you know is make everything that sort of a game right in a sense i i what are the things we want to look for uh how do we look for things in an environment like we have fun ones where we're always saying you know i'm sure you've heard it in class where hey go and go find some uh you know pictures of feral cats get get as many photos of feral cats as you can see it's like why well

well because they're they're always walking around that negative space they're hiding out so if you can identify those things you know wandering around they're in your environment that you don't even see you kind of get good at picking up little things that you otherwise wouldn't have you know things we find out a place where big one on shopping carts for a number of

different Up

reasons

against the you wall

know

or fence,

yeah right? we're you know you see those up against the wall or fence and it's like hey people use that to climb over sometimes like why i never really really thought of it that way and and that's those are fun games but

You know, with with anyone,

especially at your event, you know, if you can keep things in sort of those those battle buddy teams,

you know, just like the military does in a sense,

Yep.

where,

yeah, this is your job and that's your job, but you two are also working together at this point,

you're able to sort of split tasks a little bit easier.

So if I put those in the sort of folks into those little teams of two,

in a sense, they start working together a little bit better and they start helping out with the, you know, looking up.

up and looking out while one's person's down and in all of those different things can can are small ways to sort of increase you know be that that cognitive force multiplier is what we call it right um of that safety and security team of getting everyone involved and and even those little

five minute briefs before you know whatever is going to happen or 10 minute things hey get everyone together in the morning everyone take a look at who's on the team so we know you're not going to remember all each other's names but you all see who's doing what hey what's your role what's your role what's your role got it now everyone's a little bit more familiar with another hey here's one thing no matter what our job is here today safety and security is the first thing let me go over a couple things here's what you can look for in the crowd and you just say hey look for people that are really mission focused and try to figure out what's going on

going on and look for people you know that are that are uh might be coming in this way because it's a faster route to the start line or finish line or whatever but they're not supposed to go that way right uh what would that look like beforehand and if you start just priming people that way in a sense to and to have fun with it um you know it makes it it makes it a little bit more uh engaging to your brain and now it becomes a game and if it's a game well as a human i

Then

want to everybody win

wants to

Wow.

I want to win a game, right?

I want to win a prize, you know, whatever it is,

you know, who can come back with the most photos of feral cats, you know what I mean? Something like that. All you're doing is getting people to engage in observation.

And they'll see things that they otherwise wouldn't have.

And it really, really opens up your eyes,

especially in a crowd, you know,

crowd behavior is, you know, is got its whole different beast. And, you know, what I say is, you know, one on one.

you know individually most humans can be reasoned with even extremely unreasonable people you can talk them down you can find some common ground you know once there's a crowd it we we start to get dumb and and the bigger the crowd the sort of dumber we get the less we think we sort of give up some of our agency in a sense to to what the crowd is doing that's how people get wrapped up and stuff like why that escalated quickly i didn't realize next thing you know we're flipping a car it's like yeah no

No, you got a little out of control there, buddy.

And the idea is we do that, you know, individually on our own. If you'd ask that person if they would ever do something like that beforehand,

they'd be like, no, I'd never do that. Well,

sure enough,

now what happens when you get in that group?

So that's a big one. And it can go.

whose group dynamics can go positive or negative,

meaning all it takes is one person to stand up and do the right thing and everyone see that. And guess what? Everyone else starts doing the right thing because they want to be on the side of right.

If it's one person doing the wrong thing, it can go that way as well.

So the dynamic can shift based on just individual actions within that where someone says,

no,

I'm going to stand up and do this because that's the right thing to do here.

Well, sure enough, people go along to get along. So those are some.

Some some things to kind of remember and and you know all of those

Those small little five minute talks,

little meetings before everything gets started.

Those are far more powerful than people realize if you're hitting up exactly what needs to be done and what the intent is and what your focus is right there before everyone gets started,

man,

that is those gains.

I'm talking literally,

okay,

I know you're busy, but we're going to take five minutes to go over this.

That's huge because now it's there. Now it's something you thought of now when something is occurring.

their brain immediately goes back to that five-minute conversation you had in the morning to go oh hey wait a minute this is that stuff that charlie was talking about maybe we should go tell anyone but if i don't have those conversations if they're not listening to this podcast or watching even that 30-minute presentation we're going to do for you guys you know it gets lost i forget about that stuff because i get so mission focused on what my job is and that's what we're trying to do especially when you have a group like this when you have an event and you have all those people working for you

you know everyone is as important as as the you know the counter observation or counter surveillance team with sniper rifles and that those guys perched up somewhere if you've got them hey great but everyone's job is just as important as theirs

And Charlie, what we've set up for you, deliberately,

folks,

this podcast is going to reach a bunch of people with similar experiences as Charlie's that are setting up an event.

We want them to make it accessible to the most amount of people to stimulate their thought.

Brian and I developed a 30-minute version,

Charlie,

that's laser-focused for your folks.

You'll get that this week that you'll be able to start playing for those folks and send it out.

Between those two things and what Brian is talking about,

that five-minute on-duty roll call,

hey,

let's be careful out there.

These are the things, not platitudes of five,

you know, a minute with three things to remember.

You're going to increase your coverage out there, Charlie.

And we are hoping it's going to be an incredible,

bountiful, wonderful, safe event for you.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Yeah,

you got anything else, Charlie?

I don't want to make sure we cover everything.

And like I said,

I could talk with you guys all day. And so that's what was so great about the class at Liberty was it was just three days of drinking from a fire hose and never,

never.

Never not full throttle and it's just.

a testament of exactly how multiple you guys are in in what you do so

Thanks so much.

We appreciate that, Charlie.

And we appreciate you coming on here and kind of bringing up some of your concerns.

Like we said, other people are thinking about the same stuff.

So if there's anyone out there listening to this that has any questions,

obviously you can reach out to us at leftofgreg at gmail.com.

But thanks,

Charlie and Greg.

Thank you guys both for coming on. Thanks, everyone, for listening.

And don't forget that training changes behavior.

Good stuff, bud.

That's all for today,

folks.

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