FBI Citizens’ Academy

I just completed the five-week FBI Citizens’ Academy. We meet once a week in the evening for 3 hours at the FBI offices (mine was in Salt Lake City) and on one Saturday at the firing range (mine was with the Salt Lake County). The best training experience I have ever had.

The curriculum consists of

• Practical problems involving evidence collection and preservation.
• FBI jurisdiction and congressional oversight.
• Structure and operation of FBI field offices and satellite agencies.
• Fingerprint, forensic, technology, training, and other services.
• Policies and issues: ethics, discipline, communications, drug enforcement, civil rights, and future criminal trends.
• Firearms training.

The Special Agent in Charge (SAC) and the Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC) lead the training; the actual Special Agents are the instructors. We covered white collar crime, violent crime, cyber crime, counterintelligence, domestic terrorism, undercover ops, victims, investigations, technology & tools, and careers. We got enter and see the gun vault (including a 1929 Thompson submachine gun) and play in Firearms Training System (FATS simulator).

On Saturday, we saw a sniper demo. We were told roughly were he was concealed; he made 4 precise shots from 100 yards. None of us could spot him until he stood up. We saw an explosive demo; amazing what a little C4 can do. We shot four FBI guns – two handguns and two semi/full automatic guns. We even got to shoot the .45 Tommy gun. We participated in a SWAT team hostage training session (we were the hostages).

There is no doubt that the men and women we met — Special Agents and support staff — are second to none. They are very professional and personable. They are dedicated to their jobs. I was more than impressed.

If you are interested in law enforcement, information security, investigations, forensics, homeland security, this is a must. It was a great experience for all of us. I want to thanks those that participated in the 12th Citizens’ Academy in the Utah Division. I wish them the best, including the SAC who is transferring to the SE USA.

This entry was posted on 11 October 2009 at 21:46 and is filed under Homeland Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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