Mass shootings in schools, houses of worship and retail/commercial/entertainment spaces tend to receive the most media attention. However, this may lead to a skewed perception of of what might be more correctly termed as “mass killing events.” Culling the data can be challenging, as can be getting up-to-the-minute data. Fortunately, a database maintained by a partnership with The Associated Press, Northeastern University and USA TODAY does much of the data collection and analysis. The Mass...
Sadly, the US is experiencing a wave of gun violence. Whether the result of an uptick in shootings in big cities, or high-profile shootings such as those recently in the New York City subway system, Buffalo, NY or Uvalde, TX, all have common denominators: needless loss of life and suffering. This begs the questions: Could steps have been taken to mitigate the loss of life? If so, what are they? Is public access bleeding control...
ASIS International, the premier global community of security practitioners, published Public Access Bleeding Control and the Standard of Care: A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats on March 17, 2022 as an online exclusive to Security Management magazine. The article, co-authored by our team members, examines at the impact the widespread availability of public access bleeding control equipment and the related training could have on negligence actions. The article can be accessed here. More about ASIS...
The U.S. Immigration and Custom’s Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations, Global Trade and Investigations division recently announced that it has seized over 11 million counterfeit N95 respirators as part of an ongoing criminal investigation. The seizures were part of Operation Stolen Promise which targets COVID-19 related fraud. A description of that initiative can be found here: https://www.ice.gov/topics/operation-stolen-promise. N95 respirators offer the highest level of protection against infection and as such are in demand. The counterfeit respirators...
“Bystander Effect,” “Bystander Apathy” or “Genovese Syndrome” are all social psychological terms used to describe the observed behavior that the greater the number of witnesses to an emergency the less likely it is that any one individual will intervene. Perhaps the most famous example of the behavior is the murder of Kitty Genovese in the Kew Gardens, Queens neighborhood of New York City. Early in the morning of March 13, 1964, Ms. Genovese was returning to...
On May 18th of 2018, seventeen year old Dimitrios Pagourtzis, a student at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas, opened fire in an art classroom at the high school killing 10 and wounding 13. The firearms used in the shooting, a shotgun and .38-caliber revolver, were both legally owned by Pagourtzis’ father. Although Pagourtzis’ choice of firearms is somewhat atypical for mass school shootings, the source is not. As it turns out, it...
The Master replied, “What is necessary is to rectify names.” . . . “If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success.” –The Analects of Confucius, Book 13 Chapter 3 Although the above quote applied to the ordering of political and social status, as well as the rights and responsibilities occasioned...
An earlier post introduced the Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC), a public-private partnership between the United States Department of State and the Private Sector. See http://www.excelsioradvisory.com/overseas-security-advisory-council/. While OSAC’s focus is on international security issues, there are a number of additional open source intelligence resources available to organizations contemplating doing business overseas. The World Fact Book. Published by the Central Intelligence Agency, the World Fact Book (WFB) provides information on the history, people, government, economy, geography,...
Traveling to unfamiliar locations abroad can present a myriad of challenges. Encountering security, legal, financial or medical issues while away from home can be daunting. Fortunately, the United States Department of State provides a number of resources to help mitigate such travel risks. One resource is: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories.html/. Here the Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs posts Travel Advisories. Travel Advisories are issued for each country of the world, follow a consistent format and use plain...
Most of us are familiar with Benjamin Franklin’s famous adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Unprecedented access to information in today’s digital world oftentimes results in information overload. Paralysis by analysis may be worse than no analysis at all. One concise resource that US companies have to keep abreast of international security issues and incidents is the Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC). Founded over thirty years ago, OSAC is a public...
