Most People Get This Wrong (88% Failure Rate)

0:00 The question that is so relevant to me is is in large part what you just said.

0:06 Are we going to fight the way that we've been fighting or are

0:08 we going to change the way that we resist our our temptation,

0:13 the mood, um, pressures outside of us, etc.

0:18 [snorts] And there are changes happening at the national security level.

0:23 There are changes happening that the government is

0:26 initiating on its own to combat what it determines,

0:29 what it sees as future threats.

0:31 And that's a that's a big part of what I was involved in when I was at CIA.

0:36 It's a big part of the book that I just realized

0:38 that I just released talking about how America is making those changes,

0:43 how it's making changes to keep the American people safe, safer,

0:46 how it's making changes to combat adversaries that are also changing.

0:52 And I I say that because the changes

0:54 that the national security infrastructure are making are not

0:57 the same changes that we need to have

1:01 as a human race in order to pick a new path.

1:05 Because while we are shifting, we're shifting 5, 7,

1:09 12 degrees, but we're still going predominantly in one direction.

1:14 the same game.

1:17 So I want to get to a couple questions

1:19 that just I have is just out of my own ignorance.

1:23 So for one, we've had two recent assassination attempts from rooftops.

1:29 I don't personally understand the security failure of check the[ __] rooftops.

1:36 Right?

1:37 Like what what is going on there?

1:39 Why I mean like it seems like it look,

1:42 if I was going to be in in that type of position of Charlie Kirk

1:46 or the type of position of Donald Trump

1:48 and that's not my intention to be in that position,

1:51 but who knows where how far the targets, you know, will go.

1:55 If I get to ever get to the point where I have a security detail,

1:59 I'm going to be like, yo, y'all are watching the rooftops like all the time.

2:04 You know what I mean?

2:05 Like so that's one thing.

2:06 Like walk me through that.

2:07 I don't understand I don't understand why you don't check that.

2:11 So there's you do check it.

2:12 It's actually one of the priority things in any kind of security detail.

2:15 Whenever you whenever you pre or advance a location,

2:19 you're looking for vectors of attack, vectors of threat.

2:23 And roofs are a very well-known,

2:25 very established I mean altitude really elevation

2:29 for sure is a very well-known vector of attack.

2:32 Because when you have elevation, you have clear line of sight.

2:37 You also maintain distance versus say an attacker.

2:42 There was a famous attack in the 1950s.

2:45 I just lost the name.

2:47 I lost the name of somebody who tried

2:48 to kill a president in a restaurant up close.

2:52 So there's two different types of of threats, right?

2:55 You got the close range and the long range.

2:56 Reagan was shot up close, right?

2:59 But so you you if you are a premeditated attacker and you

3:04 are choosing a premeditated location that is outdoors altitude is your friend.

3:09 Elevation is your friend.

3:11 So then when you come to advance a location, you have to think like the wolf.

3:15 You have to think like the attacker.

3:16 Where would be the best vector?

3:18 And what's what the what the attacker doesn't know is

3:22 exactly how the the foreground is going to be set up.

3:27 So like with Charlie Kirk, there were tents, there were flags.

3:32 With Donald Trump, there were bleachers.

3:34 So when you set up a location in advance,

3:37 you're essentially um showing the threat how the stage is going to be set up.

3:44 So that allows them more opportunity

3:45 to choose where they're going to shoot from.

3:47 Now with both Thomas Crooks and Tyler Robinson,

3:52 the person who tried to shoot Trump in Pennsylvania

3:54 and the person who shot Charlie Kirk in Utah.

3:56 In both of those situations,

3:58 they chose rooftops that were approximately the same distance,

4:01 175 yards, 150 yards.

4:04 Part of the reason they chose that distance is because that's not

4:07 a impossible shot with a commercial hunting

4:11 rifle or a commercial assault rifle, right?

4:13 The average person with decent vision Thomas

4:16 Crooks was in glasses for crying out loud.

4:18 So the average person with a little bit

4:19 of familiarity can make a shot from that distance,

4:22 which is why there's a 200-yard mandate for the most part,

4:26 minimum safe zone for any rooftop in the area.

4:31 With President Trump,

4:32 you saw failures in his Secret Service response time, etc., etc.

4:36 that led to the fire the shot being pulled off at all.

4:39 But you also saw that Thomas Crooks was immediately

4:41 killed on the same rooftop where he fired his shot.

4:45 Charlie Kirk didn't have that kind of security detail.

4:47 Whether that was because they didn't think they

4:49 needed it or it's just super expensive, too.

4:51 I mean it's very expensive thing to have, right?

4:53 Yeah.

4:54 But you still saw something similar.

4:56 One of the big differences though between Thomas Crooks and Tyler Robinson is

5:01 where Tyler Crooks or where where Thomas Crooks set himself up in Butler,

5:05 Pennsylvania, he did not have a route of escape.

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6:00 The the conclusion that you have to lead

6:02 from that is that he went up on that roof

6:06 to try to kill President or the future President Trump

6:09 with the intention that he would try to kill Trump,

6:11 but he knew full well he would not escape.

6:14 There he had no route of escape.

6:16 He had no no planned egress.

6:18 He was he was in trouble.

6:20 He was going to die that day.

6:21 Where Tyler Robinson had a very well-planned egress route.

6:25 He had a plan for how he was going to dispose of the weapon.

6:28 He had a plan for where he was going to go next.

6:30 Very similar to Luigi Mangione.

6:31 They had a plan for how they were going to get

6:34 off the X after they they committed their act of violence.

6:38 So when you think like the wolf,

6:40 these are the things that you're thinking about.

6:42 Is the shot realistic for me?

6:44 Is it within the right range?

6:45 What's the right weapon?

6:46 What's my what's my way of approach in?

6:48 What's my way of egress out?

6:50 What will be the response time

6:52 for federal or for protective services afterwards?

6:55 So why rooftops?

6:57 Because you get the best opportunity for everything.

6:59 If you're if you're in front of the crowd with a handgun,

7:02 how are you going to get out?

7:03 How are you going to egress?

7:05 You're going to be slowed down by the crowd itself, right?

7:09 Yeah.

7:09 Yeah, it just seems like uh not enough attention is paid to the most obvious way

7:16 if somebody cares about actually I mean obviously

7:18 in this kind of suicidal homicide, you know,

7:22 it's like somebody who that's what's so dangerous

7:25 in some of the areas that, you know,

7:26 you used to work is there's this idea where you can

7:30 actually literally put bombs on yourself and become a human bomb.

7:34 Well, when that changes the rules of every engagement of everything, right?

7:38 That's that makes everything so much more dangerous.

7:41 If you're willing to drive your own vehicle,

7:43 which is a bomb into something knowing that your vehicle will explode,

7:46 well,[ __] that's a whole new vector that you have to deal with.

7:49 Even the kamikaze pilots in World War II, right?

7:52 That's like they weren't trying to just bomb

7:54 and get out and go home and see their family.

7:56 They were committed to die in that and that changes it.

7:59 But most likely somebody's going to look for a way to escape,

8:03 which means most likely it's going to be on a rooftop,

8:05 which means got to get eyeballs on those on those roofs.

8:09 And, you know, it just seems like that's

8:13 a to me like a definitely like a security failure.

8:18 And I'm not trying to blame the actual individuals on security detail.

8:21 I'm sure they're fine folks with a lot of training.

8:24 But it's just is like yo, like we got to we got to look at that what

8:28 seems like the most likely way that somebody's going to be attacked.

8:32 And and the other thing I just want

8:34 to mention real quick and have you comment on.

8:36 Both those gunmen, you know, as a hunt as someone who hunts,

8:42 you know, taking a 200-yard shot is not that difficult.

8:47 Now, of course, it's way more difficult when you actually see the animal

8:50 in front of you because you get what they call buck fever.

8:53 And I can only imagine what that's like.

8:55 I mean these these are clearly sociopaths.

8:58 So they may actually have shut off that feeling

9:00 of nervousness or the but but ultimately it's

9:03 a more way more difficult shot on an animal

9:06 than it is a target when you're hunting, right?

9:08 It's just kind of known.

9:11 [snorts] But it's not that difficult a shot.

9:12 So people are saying like no way he could have pulled off that shot.

9:14 Well, first of all, he wasn't aiming for Charlie's neck.

9:18 Like nobody aims for the neck.

9:20 So he he missed.

9:21 And and the other shooter also missed, caught the ear.

9:25 So they weren't exactly like dialed in accurate.

9:28 So it seems quite plausible that he was the actual shooter.

9:33 He, you know, misjudged the elevation,

9:35 maybe the ballistics of his of his bullet and how much drop

9:39 it would have at that distance or it's a variety of different things.

9:42 But the second miss, of course, was a fatal miss.

9:46 You know, and and so that seems to me

9:49 plausible that he could have pulled off the shot.

9:51 But it still leaves me questions about like why why security

9:56 details aren't paying more attention to really focusing on these rooftops.

10:01 I I want to I want to be very clear that I

10:04 am I am 100% defending the professionalism

10:06 of security details because in hindsight,

10:10 it's easy to focus on the rooftop cuz that's where the threat came from.

10:13 But before the threat presents itself, the threat could come from anywhere.

10:17 Right.

10:18 The front row, the middle of the left side,

10:20 behind the bleachers, under the bleachers.

10:22 It could be someone who drives a car across

10:24 the the the barrier in the middle of the presentation.

10:27 So you've got a limited number of people, 5, 7, 12, 25, you name it.

10:31 You've got a limited number of people and an infinite number of threat vectors.

10:35 So they're trying their best to reduce as best they can,

10:39 but you can't reduce everything.

10:41 And when the threat presents itself,

10:43 oftentimes you have to respond to the threat.

10:45 It's funny that there's a there's my coping mechanism again, right?

10:48 It's funny.

10:49 Yeah.

10:50 It's not funny that the executive protection world has

10:55 recently gone through the process of uh of empiricalizing,

11:00 of measuring, of testing the effectiveness of close protection.

11:06 And what they have found in their research is that 88%

11:12 of close protection responses results in the death of the principal.

11:17 So that means 88% of the time that a threat presents

11:21 itself and executive protection has to step in to protect the principal,

11:25 88% of the time the principal is lost.

11:30 I mean, it's only 22% of time.

11:32 12%.

11:33 12% of the time.

11:34 In the last, I think it was a 20-year study, 24-year study.

11:38 In the last 24 years,

11:39 there's only 12% of instances where the the principal survived.

11:43 That doesn't mean the principal was uninjured, but the principal survived.

11:47 Wow.

11:47 Right?

11:48 Those numbers are daunting.

11:50 And what the executive protection industry is waking up

11:52 to is the fact that if you're focused on close protection,

11:55 if you're focused on response, you're going to lose your principal.

11:59 So you need to be focused on advanced intelligence,

12:01 on preparation, on on predicting threat vectors,

12:05 on forcing threat vectors so that you can limit the number

12:09 of places where you have to worry about an attack.

12:12 Instead of having an outdoor rally, having an indoor rally.

12:15 Instead of having having a live rally, having a virtual rally.

12:17 Mhm.

12:18 You know, then instead of allowing 10,000 people,

12:20 you allow 2,000 people and they're all pre-vetted.

12:23 Right?

12:23 There's There's all these measures that are

12:25 being taken not just for politicians,

12:28 but for CEOs and for CFOs and for investors around the world where they're

12:33 realizing that close protection services are only

12:36 effective a little over 10% of the time.

12:39 Mhm.

12:41 You know, there was also, you know,

12:42 another recent tragic event on uh on the bus,

12:46 you know, where uh Ukrainian woman was stabbed to death.

12:51 And you know, this is these things are all happening

12:54 in in kind of short succession here and you know, violence and there's shooters.

13:00 I mean, there's so many shootings and shooting attempts that are happening now,

13:05 they almost even don't make an that much of a blip in the in the news cycle.

13:11 What is, you know, for the average citizen,

13:14 like what do you think we should be doing

13:17 to prepare ourselves for this world where it's seemingly,

13:22 you know, there's more violence.

13:23 Like what what should have, and I I think her name was Arena,

13:27 but I'm I can't um exactly recall the Ukrainian woman's name.

13:32 But like what are the steps that ordinary people should take, you know,

13:36 just citizens, even if they're not a high-profile target, to be safer?

13:43 It's such a good question.

13:45 There's There's the primary lesson that all elite

13:49 operators are taught when it comes to personal security,

13:53 self-defense, um defensive tactics, if you will.

13:58 The first thing that we're taught is that you need distance from the threat.

14:02 Distance is your best friend.

14:03 With distance, you also gain time.

14:07 So that's physical distance,

14:08 meaning if if you want to protect yourself from a shooter, stand further away.

14:13 If you want to protect yourself from somebody

14:14 who presents a knife, stand further away.

14:16 It's It's a very simple concept.

14:18 But distance creates time and you need that time to reach a good

14:22 response because your instinctive response may not be the best response for you.

14:26 True.

14:26 There's Exactly.

14:27 There's four sympathetic responses that your body

14:30 goes through when it's in immediate threat.

14:33 There's fight or flight, which we're all very familiar with.

14:35 And if somebody presents a knife and you don't have a knife,

14:38 fight is not the response that you necessarily want to have.

14:41 Mhm.

14:41 Flight means that you run away.

14:43 Oftentimes, flight is not the best response either because when you run away,

14:48 you're actually exposing the most vulnerable parts of your body to the threat.

14:53 Your back.

14:53 Your back, your back, your spinal column, your nerve endings,

14:57 easier access to all of your critical your organs like your kidney,

15:01 your livers or your kidneys, your liver, but you the lungs,

15:03 [snorts] everything's so much more accessible

15:05 from the back than it is from the front.

15:07 So when you turn to flee, you're actually reducing your chances of survival.

15:12 trust your Nikes.

15:13 And then you've got two other

15:14 sympathetic responses that people don't talk about.

15:16 There's freeze where you literally don't know what to do.

15:20 The information is too much, so your body just freezes.

15:23 We've all Too unfamiliar as well.

15:24 We've all seen deer do this in headlights, right?

15:27 They freeze.

15:28 But then there's also something called fawn.

15:30 And fawn is when you immediately subjugate yourself to the threat

15:33 in an an effort to try to appease them before they hurt you.

15:38 We see this in abusive relationships.

15:39 You also see this in the movies where people beg for their life.

15:42 Oh, please, please.

15:43 That's not fighting, fleeing, or freezing.

15:46 It's fawning.

15:47 Mhm.

15:48 Right?

15:48 And that's a very real sympathetic response.

15:51 When you gain distance, you gain time to process through all

15:54 four of those sympathetic responses before you make

15:57 a conclusion as to what is the best survivable uh approach for you to take.

16:03 So I say that because the first thing people

16:05 need to do is they need to increase their distance.

16:08 Before you go into a mall, drive around the mall.

16:12 Stand Get out of your car and stand by the back of your car

16:15 just for a second to see what's happening in the area around you.

16:19 Does it look normal?

16:19 Does it not look normal?

16:20 This is something we call situational awareness.

16:23 You gain situational awareness with distance.

16:26 As you close distance, you decrease your reaction time.

16:29 So you want to make sure that you're

16:30 controlling when you choose to decrease your distance,

16:34 when you choose to decrease your reaction

16:36 time because you're increasing the risk to yourself.

16:38 As your situational awareness confirms that it's safe to move forward,

16:42 then you move forward.

16:43 What are the busiest times to be at the mall?

16:46 Do you want to be at the mall in those busiest times?

16:48 Because when you are, it reduces your distance, it reduces your time.

16:52 The mall can be a stand-in for the grocery store.

16:55 It can be your child's school.

16:56 It can be your church.

16:58 How many people find themselves getting to church at the last minute,

17:01 rushing into church at the last minute, working through the crowd?

17:04 Right?

17:05 Your your attacker is using distance,

17:08 time, and situational awareness against you.

17:10 They've been there for a while.

17:11 Or they are still yet to come because they

17:13 know that the peak attack is going to happen when

17:15 everybody's distracted trying to rush into their seat when

17:18 the first the first uh note from the band strikes up.

17:23 [snorts] So you've got to you've got to use the same

17:24 tools that the that the attacker is using Mhm.

17:27 against you.

17:28 So defense and time by far are the two best things

17:31 that you can use because they allow you to gain situational awareness.

17:35 We can go very deep into what other techniques people can use,

17:38 but when it comes to conceptual simple understanding,

17:41 those are the first things that that we're taught

17:43 and the first things that I would want everyone else to learn.

17:46 I'd I'd heard and read somewhere that in uh you know,

17:50 there was a time where there was, you know,

17:52 during prohibition where there was just unbelievable gang violence

17:55 of of different gangs trying to control different uh production

18:00 and and distribution of alcohol and there was just murders

18:03 happening all over in Chicago and different places and you know,

18:06 one of the rules of thumb was to to never

18:09 be in a seat where your back was to, you know, things that you couldn't see.

18:14 Mhm.

18:14 You know, so find yourself in a seat where actually you have visibility.

18:18 And visibility is also distance because there's no

18:21 distance when you can't see what's behind you.

18:24 Correct.

18:24 Cuz somebody actually broach that distance to zero without you even knowing.

18:29 And that's what happened in the in the, you know,

18:32 railroad car that in that in that attack.

18:35 So, you know, one idea is to is to find the place

18:38 where you have high visibility and then probably also be thinking about,

18:42 all right, what is my you know, what is my escape route?

18:46 What is my egress route?

18:47 Well, how do I how do I if something goes down, how do I how do I leave?

18:51 So if you're in a And again, this is tough cuz if you're in a packed theater,

18:55 you may be stuck in the middle[ __] seat and, you know,

18:58 that's just what you want to do.

18:59 You want to be there for the show, right?

19:01 gotten there earlier, couldn't you?

19:02 Yeah, you're going to watch Hamilton, you know,

19:03 so you going to want the middle seat,

19:05 but but also thinking about, all right, where are the exits?

19:07 You know, where do I have the most visibility?

19:09 If you are concerned about taking those extra steps,

19:13 it seems like those are just all so simple

19:15 rules like keep your back to a wall or some

19:17 place that you can't go and then know what

19:19 your escape and and egress route is if something goes down.

19:24 So there's and and I'm glad that you bring this up because there are very simple

19:28 very uh demonstrable tools that you can use

19:32 that you can remember to keep yourself safe.

19:34 When you park, park under a lamp.

19:37 Don't park away from a lamp, park under a lamp.

19:39 Most people don't do that because they're afraid

19:41 of birds pooping on their on their uh

19:43 car or the lamp is too far away and there's a closer parking spot.

19:47 Park under a lamp post because if you're approaching your car at night,

19:52 the the the dark and the light are opposites,

19:54 and the light on your car will actually deter a threat from attacking you

19:59 when they could attack someone else who's going to be in a darker area.

20:03 Backing into your parking spot, this is a big one.

20:06 We're taught to always back into our parking spot.

20:08 We're also taught that when you choose a parking spot,

20:11 choose a parking spot that has a direct route of of escape.

20:16 Not direct meaning there's a straight road.

20:19 Direct meaning there's no building or fence in your way.

20:22 Your car can go over a curb.

20:24 It can go over the grass.

20:25 It can drive through the dirt.

20:27 You don't have to worry about those things.

20:28 If there's a If there's a disaster, if there's something,

20:30 a fire that breaks out or a shooting that breaks out at the grocery store,

20:34 you want to be able to get to your car,

20:35 start your car, and drive straight away from the threat.

20:40 Over the curb, through the grass, over the dirt, onto the highway, right?

20:44 That's way better than being trapped in some sort of gridlock thing where

20:48 you're trying to back out and everybody else is trying to back out,

20:51 and all of a sudden the cars hit each other and nobody can go anywhere.

20:54 So, park under a light, back into your parking spot.

20:56 When you're indoors, yes, you want your back to a wall.

20:59 I completely agree with that.

21:01 Even better if you can have your back against a solid wall,

21:04 not a wall with glass.

21:06 Right.

21:06 You don't want to be anywhere close to a road that parallels a glass storefront.

21:12 Because now drive-by attacks or even secondary attacks,

21:16 if they're trying to shoot somebody at the next restaurant over,

21:19 but straight bullets come through the glass at your restaurant,

21:22 now you have to worry about glass and you have to worry about bullets,

21:25 and you have to worry about what you're wearing on your feet.

21:28 So, stay away from flip-flops.

21:29 Stay away from Crocs.

21:30 Look for laced shoes.

21:31 Look for solid toes.

21:33 Cuz these are all things that are going to keep

21:34 you safe in the event that the worst thing happens.

21:37 Mhm.

21:38 So, back back to a uh a solid wall is much better than back to a glass wall.

21:45 If you don't have a solid wall or if

21:46 there's no no place available with a solid wall,

21:50 then you want to be you want to have as few

21:52 people between you and the wall behind you as possible.

21:56 So, you sit towards the back of the restaurant or you

21:58 sit deeper into the restaurant rather than in the front.

22:01 There's a spectrum that we have that we

22:02 teach at CIA between convenience and security.

22:06 Mhm.

22:07 They're opposite sides of a spectrum.

22:08 So, wherever you land, you're going to land closer to one,

22:12 but further from the other.

22:14 And the more convenient your lifestyle is, the less secure it's going to be.

22:18 And the more secure your lifestyle is,

22:20 the less convenient it's going If you like that video,

22:22 you're going to love the next one, and I'll see you there.

22:24 So, once you accept that nothing is fair,

22:26 that also means there isn't really anything that's unfair.

22:31 You can do whatever you need to improve yourself and your life.