(Newswire.net — February 3, 2014) Braintree, MA —
Not only was the Super Bowl on the line, but so was the safety of the more than 82,000 fans jamming MetLife Stadium in the Meadowlands of New Jersey. With over another 100 million television viewers looking on, this was one of the world’s highest visible events and one that could attract simple mischief to terrorism.
Protecting the Homeland Innovations, LLC (PHI), a firm based in Braintree, MA, was called upon to train 65 law enforcement instructors from various agencies in order to maintain security at this year’s highest profile NFL finale. Months prior to the event Todd McGhee, a former MA State Trooper and a well recognized expert in the field of terrorism and security training, and his team from PHI kicked off a 40 hour course over five days.
The 65 instructors then trained hundreds of New Jersey State Troopers, New Jersey Transit Police Officers, and dozens of local municipal police agencies. PHI directly trained MetLife Stadium security, and staff as well as hotel security and staff. The training included both classroom and field exercises for a realistic application of the training.
“Our focus is to utilize basic behavioral analysis to identify, evaluate, respond to, and report high risk behavior,” noted McGhee, CEO of PHI and a regular terrorism and safety analyst for Fox-TV. He underscored, “This is not about racial, ethnic or religious profiling, we insist on strict adherence to the preservation of civil rights. On the contrary, our program is based on any human’s behavior.
“We teach not only security personnel we also teach the support personnel, the front line workers, to look for oddities in behavior. For example, the guest who is nervous about passing through ticketing, the straggler who hangs back while everyone is rushing to get in, someone inappropriately dressed for the weather conditions, or a person who might be excessively sweating or their eyes are darting about,” McGhee explained.
In addition to monitoring for potential terrorist behavior, because of the behavior recognition techniques that these employees were taught, the PHI program helped minimize other common event crimes such as pick pocketing, sexual assault, unlawful possession of weapons and breach into secure areas.
PHI has a standing working relationship with the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness and has trained various state organizations including all transit employees since 2005.
PHI’s ProActive Terrorist Recognition and Interdiction Operations and Tactics Training System® (P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Training System®), is approved by the Department of Homeland Security and therefore, any DHS monies earmarked for counter-terrorism training can be used toward PHI’s P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Training System®.
About Protecting the Homeland Innovations, LLC
The founders of PHI are Master Instructors who are all sworn law enforcement officers who collectively have over 100 years of law enforcement experience. The PHI team has taught courses to over 12,000 federal, state, and local police and security officers from over 250 agencies and more than 18,000 civilian front line employees.
The company has helped implement anti-terrorism programs for private and public education, airports, municipal and state police, state and federal agencies, transit authorities, amusement parks, corporate campuses, hospitals, hotels and more.
PHI is located at 143 Wood Road, Braintree, MA 02184. For more information about the company, please visit wwwPHItraining.com or call (866) 534-6186.