Surveillance Awareness and Mass Shootings

It now sounds like three shooters hit a Social Services building in California, quickly moving to a rented conference room where a holiday office party was being held, killing at least 14 and wounding 17. The rumor is they were in and out in minutes. From early info it sounds like a targeted hit.

It is tempting to visualize ways you might meet such an attack. It will often devolve into considerations between FN 5.7’s or Glock 19’s, various methods of situational awareness such as keeping your back to the door, and items that can offer cover or serve as improvised weapons in various environments. But that all ignores one highly effective way to counter such attacks before they cause casualties.

There will be random, unplanned mass shootings. But most attacks, as this one appears to have been, will be planned.

These shooters needed to know which building of the three on site they were hitting and where they were going in the building. They needed to know security. Were there metal detectors? Was there an armed guard? Did cops frequently find themselves there on calls of some sort? Who were the targets? What was the probability one of them was armed? Did the building forbid concealed carry making everyone be unarmed? Was there a guard at a gate, or a guard behind a desk who everyone had to pass by to check in? Were there security cameras that needed to be evaded or shielded from? Where were alternative exit paths? How would you trap victims, so they couldn’t squeeze out a back door or window? Where might victims hide? When planning such an attack, the amygdalae of the attackers would have haunted them until they answered these questions, and they could visualize the attack from start to finish. That would have driven them to gather intelligence on their target.

The shooting might have been done by employees who already knew these things. But many such attacks will often come from outside the target location, and that will require surveillance by outsiders. If they were outsiders, then while reconning their target the surveillants may have appeared to be loitering while scanning for something, strangely, in a way most people who normally visit the building or work there would not. They paid attention to things like security cameras, guards, roving security patterns, shift changes, exit/entrance paths, and floor plans. They likely loitered in various places, and if somebody looked at them too long, they would have appeared uneasy, and sought to move away without appearing suspicious – which itself might add to their suspicious appearance. Some might write things down after looking around, maybe even while keeping a short pen and pad inside their pocket as they scribbled without looking. Others may take quick photos or video of key aspects of the target to brief the team later. Others might ask questions about sensitive data they wouldn’t need to know for normal purposes at the site, and they might give an outlandish excuse for asking, or evince a sheepish caution as they query you, as if fearful of exposing their intent.

They can be smart and try to camouflage themselves. Janitor outfits, delivery man outfits, a tool box, a handcart with document boxes, landscaping equipment, or a briefcase can all offer cover for their presence or loitering. Even trucks painted with professional logos for local businesses or with magnetic signs with business logos on the doors can be used to defuse suspicion. They can create covers to mask their purposes by making actual appointments with offices at the building. They can use gambits to defuse suspicion. Someone surveilling a parking area may act as if a beggar when noticed, and approach and solicit the person who suspected them to try and defuse the suspicion they perceived. They might even perpetrate a petty crime for you to witness before fleeing, such as breaking a car window and grabbing something, to mask their real, deeper purpose. It is important to question yourself in those moments about what it was which first tripped your antennae about them, and not let their gambit distract you.

Good surveillance shouldn’t be noticed – the majority of professional training is about acting in such a way as to elude notice. But if you keep your wits about you, lock eye contact with those you pass by and assess their reactions to the subtle stress that engenders, and assess everyone for any little indicator about them which doesn’t fit, you might one day notice someone looking a little too interestedly at a potential target, and looking shocked or bothered by being noticed.

If you notice surveillance, the intelligence you grab immediately is vital. Cellphone pics of the actors, license plates, actor descriptions, identifiable aspects of their cover, even exit routes from the site, gum wrappers they dropped, or elevator buttons they pressed, can all help Law Enforcement figure out what is going on, and maybe stop a tragedy. If they had phony magnetic signs on the doors of their SUV which said, “Tony’s Electrical Contracting” LE can approach makers of magnetic signs, and maybe work backward to who ordered them and where they were delivered. Ideally such intel should be gathered without alerting the surveillant to their having been burned.

Based on reports, the chances are the shooters checked out this site for far longer than they spent hitting it. If you were periodically at that site, you would have had more time and opportunity to disrupt the plan in the attack planning phase of surveillance than you would have had during the shooting, and if you pulled it off, you’d drop the casualty rate to zero. Seize every opportunity, and never fear being paranoid. Increasingly in these troubled times, threats are out there.

The Apocalypse is coming.