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Today, back by popular demand, is Jake the International Security Specialist Guy. This time I'm catching up to him while he was at home in Thailand. Jake has been doing security work in trouble spots all over the world and was gracious enough to drop in a let me pick his brain on several topics. In this episode we're going to talk traveling in a country with civil unrest, demonstrations, and riots. Jake's going to explain how to avoid trouble and take care of your family while the streets are shut down and the phone service is cut off. You'll like hearing a cop like Jake talk about this stuff and, even if you're not leaving the country anytime soon, there's still a lot here you can apply to emergency situations at home.
Music is by Cumbia Deli and by Nick Panek
Hey Chaplain podcast episode 138
Tags:
Travel, Avoidance, Civil Unrest, Family, Maps, Mobile Phones, News, OSINT, Olympics, Plans, Police, Protests, Riots, World Cup, Kuala Lumpur, Paris, France, India, Iran, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Tanzania, Vietnam
Thanks for Listening! And, as always, pray for peace in our city.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:03):
Welcome to Hey Chaplin.
My name is Jared Altic and I'm achaplain with the police
department.
The Hey Chaplin podcast is abouttalking to police officers who
say, Hey Chaplain, I've got astory to tell and some
hard-earned wisdom to share.
The guests on Hey Chaplin comefrom across the world, from the
LAPD to Scotland Yard, fromThailand to South Africa.
(00:28):
They are sharing their wisdom sothat you don't have to learn the
hard way.
And as a patrol chaplain, Ithink you deserve something
positive and encouraging.
Hey Chaplin remains a freeresource to encourage police
(00:48):
officers, chaplains, and otherfirst responders around the
world because of supporters whoare quietly helping behind the
scenes.
If you want to help out likethis, just follow the link in
the episode description or theshow notes to support the show.
Today, backed by popular demand,is Jake, the International
(01:10):
Security Specialist Guy.
This time I'm catching up to himwhile he was at home in
Thailand.
Jake has been doing securitywork in troubled spots all over
the world and was graciousenough to drop in and let me
pick his brain on severaltopics.
In this episode, we're going totalk about traveling in a
country with civil unrest,demonstrations, and riots.
(01:34):
Jake's going to explain how toavoid trouble and take care of
your family while the streetsare shut down and the phone
service is cut off.
You'll like hearing a cop likeJake talk about this kind of
stuff.
And even if you're not leavingthe country anytime soon,
there's still a lot here for youto apply to other emergency
(01:57):
situations at home.
Here's Jake, the InternationalSecurity Specialist guy.
Hello, Jake.
How are you today?
SPEAKER_00 (02:09):
I'm good.
How are you?
It's been a while since we gotto see each other.
SPEAKER_01 (02:13):
Yeah, it was great having you when you were
visiting the United States.
Uh, you actually came by myoffice, which I hugely
appreciated.
And now we're 12 time zonesaway, and and I've got you on
the video screen.
So I'm glad to have you here.
Good to be here.
We're gonna talk today aboutwhen we travel overseas, running
into civil unrests and protests.
SPEAKER_00 (02:36):
You know, what I always want to be careful to do
is not to fear people up totravel by talking about these
subjects, because while thereality is that protests and
demonstrations and all of thesethings are very common, uh, at
the same time, they're verycommon in the US, and people
frequently travel in the US, andthere's there's not an issue.
(02:57):
And so they're common in the US,they're common in every country,
every European country.
I was in Paris during theOlympics, and there were
protests and demonstrationsgoing on every day.
I was just in uh Milan with theOlympics, and same thing, you
know, I'm tracking them on amap.
And the thing to keep in mind isthat these things are common.
(03:22):
You don't have to be going to uhsomewhere in Africa or
somewhere, you know, in a farremote place.
They're happening everywhere.
And don't be afraid to gonecessarily just because you see
something on the news that thistype of thing is occurring.
I think you just start from theperspective that these are
common and everywhere.
(03:43):
And so it's more about how do weavoid and mitigate as we go, and
it's less about being beingfeared up over the fact that
they're happening.
SPEAKER_01 (03:52):
Well, tell me what you saw in Italy.
So you were just at the WinterOlympics not long ago.
What kind of protests, what kindof civil unrest did you see
there?
SPEAKER_00 (04:02):
A range.
You know, at one level, peopleare just holding flags and
signs.
People are walking around themand taking photographs.
The the biggest grievance therewas that these people are
blocking uh the selfies thatpeople are are trying to take.
I mean, they're interferingbecause now you have a flag in
the background of a photographthat you're trying to take.
(04:24):
Right, right.
And on the other end of thescale, you had the riot police
that are using water cannons andarresting people and they're
shooting fireworks and beingviolent and people are being
injured.
SPEAKER_01 (04:38):
You had Americans there, you had people from from
almost every nation.
How do you think they handledthat?
I mean, were people holed up intheir hotel scared?
Were people just going about asnormal?
SPEAKER_00 (04:50):
I I would say most of them were situationally
unaware.
SPEAKER_01 (04:53):
Ah, okay.
SPEAKER_00 (04:54):
I don't I don't think most people even knew that
these things were taking place.
When you look at differentcountries, they have different
ways of dealing with this, andnone of this took the Italy uh
Italian law enforcement bysurprise.
Okay.
Usually the more experiencethese countries have with these
things, the more of a plan theyhave to deal with them.
SPEAKER_01 (05:14):
Now, this is off topic of what we had discussed
beforehand, but the proteststhat happen in Iran, where
there's reports that a fewthousand might have been killed
by their own government by theAyatollah, or maybe maybe twenty
thousand or thirty thousand.
Do you have a feel for even Imean, we're hearing this these
(05:35):
reports from from the outside?
Were the numbers more on the lowend or the high end, do you
think?
SPEAKER_00 (05:40):
I I couldn't tell you, but my guess would be
either on the high end.
SPEAKER_01 (05:46):
Why?
Because that's a regime likefighting fighting to survive or
for a different reason.
SPEAKER_00 (05:54):
I think because of the blackout of information that
that you couldn't get.
I mean, they they shut all theability to communicate out, and
when they do that, there'susually a lot of no good that's
happening.
SPEAKER_01 (06:07):
What about in Mexico?
You saw in uh Puerto Vallarta,uh, there was uh in other cities
too, there were cartels thatlashed out.
Uh cartel leader was killed, andthen there were for a couple
days there was pretty severeviolence, and Mexico kind of got
shut down.
I mean, there were scaremongersout there that were like, like,
(06:27):
oh, this is you know, you can'tgo vacation to Mexico ever
again.
SPEAKER_00 (06:31):
I think on the escalation ladder, the um
Mexican cartel certainly couldhave done a lot more violence
than they didn't do very easily.
Lighting a gas station on fireor doing something like that,
whereas it makes great TV, itwas not even close to as violent
as they could have been if theychose to.
SPEAKER_01 (06:51):
What's your take on that?
That it was performative or thatthey were restrained for some
other reason?
SPEAKER_00 (06:57):
I mean, I'm not an analyst to to study all this,
but it it was not anuncontrolled violent lash out.
It was strategic at some level.
SPEAKER_01 (07:08):
They could have targeted a lot of people, but
yeah, instead they dragged carsout of the street and set them
on fire, and that seemed to beabout it in many cases.
SPEAKER_00 (07:18):
Yeah.
Yeah, made some great TV.
I'm not intimately familiar withall of the nuances of what
happened.
I mean, I'm sure people maybesomebody was violently attacked
and bad things happened, but I'mjust looking at it
superficially.
I don't follow a ton of thingsin South America.
I triage a little bit of myintel because it's overwhelming
(07:40):
to look at everything that I do.
Yeah.
So we do have people that lookat that and follow it closely,
but I follow right now I followSouth America pretty shallow.
SPEAKER_01 (07:49):
Okay.
Okay.
So Latin America's not high onyour list.
SPEAKER_00 (07:53):
It is a high on the list where things happen.
Yeah.
A lot of things happen downthere.
SPEAKER_01 (07:57):
How much of the year are you away from home?
SPEAKER_00 (08:01):
Probably around six months out of the year.
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (08:04):
It seems like every time I contact you, you're in a
different country.
And so I never know what timezone you're in.
It's like, yeah, I'm in Malta,or I'm in Italy, or I'm in in
Thailand, or whatever.
And and Thailand's home, but uhyou mentioned that last time,
but you've been Africa and andall over the place.
(08:24):
And so let's talk a little bitabout you're traveling overseas
and you run into civil unrest orprotests.
Where do we start?
SPEAKER_00 (08:33):
Well, I think the place to start is with a mindset
towards how do we avoid being ina situation we don't want to be
in.
Okay.
So the avoidance piece is a bigdeal.
It's great to talk about runningfor cover or shelter and getting
out of a crowd and what to do ifand all of that, but really the
(08:53):
skill is how do we avoid beingin the middle of something that
we don't want to be in themiddle of?
And that starts with uhassessing where you're going.
A lot of police officers arefamiliar with UDA.
That's a very common term thatwe have: observe, orientate,
decide, and act.
(09:14):
Well, this is really the theobservation and the orientation
phase.
How do we observe and orientatereally well so that we can avoid
something from happeningaltogether?
Yeah.
From from the UDA standpoint,when we're looking at observing
and orientating, this is mostlydone through open source
(09:34):
information.
SPEAKER_01 (09:35):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (09:35):
It's not like you're walk seeing a suspect walk
towards you and you're assessinghis behavior.
It's not that type ofobservation and orientation.
It's really a lot of Googlingand getting on the computer and
looking at information likethat.
SPEAKER_01 (09:50):
You're you're collecting publicly available
information that is out thereand is provided and hopefully
updated.
Uh, that's that's stuff that youshould be paying attention to
when you travel.
SPEAKER_00 (10:03):
And a lot of these things are they're being
reported in the news.
But most places that peopletravel to, like the Olympics or
like somewhere that's frequentedby tourists, if there is some
type of massive protest ordisruption, it's probably going
to be in the news.
Okay.
If it's ongoing.
And even even somewhere likeIndia, in 2022, I've got twin
(10:25):
boys.
And at the time they were 18years old, and some some young
lady that is in our circle, shehad to go from Thailand to India
to do a border run.
So you have to reset your visasometimes.
And she didn't have to go toIndia, but I thought, yeah, go
to India.
India is a great place, but ifyou're going to go, you need
(10:45):
some physical protection.
So I sent my two boys asbodyguards basically for this
friend of ours to do a borderrun.
But as we're researching,they're going to Delhi, and you
can see that there's theseongoing farmer protests that are
taking place.
Well, you can actually put pinson the map.
(11:08):
You can see where these areoccurring nightly.
So what we did, we just droppedthese on a map so that as my
kids are running around gettingtaxis, uh, they can see where
they don't want to go.
You know, this was not a reasonfor them not to go.
So they had a great time.
They avoided uh all the protestsvery easily just through a
(11:29):
little bit of research.
SPEAKER_01 (11:31):
Yeah, it wasn't complicated to put this on a
shared map and and know wherenot to go, and that alone was
enough to make the trip doable.
SPEAKER_00 (11:42):
Yeah, it's it's the difference between a aware
versus unaware.
Okay.
If you're just going and you'renot even thinking about security
or safety, then you could walkinto something that you don't
want to walk into.
I learned this lesson because Iwent to Malaysia, I went to
Kuala Lumpur a couple days afterTrump dropped a bomb on Salomani
(12:06):
in Iraq, if you remember all theway back then.
Yeah.
And we're walking, I'm walkingaround with my family, and all
of a sudden I started getting.
It's been great.
I'm walking around, no problems.
Uh now I see a bunch of guysthat are dressed differently.
They're standing on the street,and they're giving me very hard
(12:27):
eyes.
They're giving my family reallyhard eyes.
And it's like, what was thatplace?
What was happening?
Well, that was I looked on themap, that was the Pakistani
embassy.
Uh, and I don't I don't know whyall these guys were waiting
outside, but they werePakistani, and the sentiment was
uh a lot of people were angrywith Americans at that time, and
(12:48):
I thought, man, I should justdrop that on the map somewhere I
don't want to go and just avoidthis altogether.
So we took those lessons and weapplied it uh like two years
later to my boys.
SPEAKER_01 (12:59):
So Americans killed an Iranian in Iraq and the
Pakistani embassy in KualaLumpur was giving you side eye.
Right.
Oh, I'm just trying to keep thisstraight, you know.
Yeah, that's correct.
Okay.
All right.
Let's say there is something inthe news.
You're gonna travel to a countrywhere there's problems and
(13:21):
there's something is is is kindof you know popping off a little
bit, but you still feel likeit's safe to travel, or maybe
you're traveling for work.
How do you monitor the threatand that kind of thing?
SPEAKER_00 (13:33):
You definitely want to start with uh open source
monitoring.
I'll just drop different linkson a PDF or um something or a
Word document that I can clickon and look at uh through the
day, but things change, youknow, and if you're in a
situation where the normal nowis changing drastically, it's
probably going to be reportedon.
(13:55):
And one of the best places tolook, if it's at that scale,
would be the US embassy websitefor wherever you're going.
They have country reports thattell you what the baseline is in
on in a country on a normal day,but they also have embassy
alerts uh that will tell yourecent updates.
(14:18):
And uh this is your yourtactical intelligence, if you
will.
Okay.
And they'll they'll put thatinto the STEP program too, which
is something you can sign up foruh through the U.S.
Embassy, and that way you justget it right on an email on your
phone.
SPEAKER_01 (14:33):
Okay.
Now, several times I've been outof the country and I've not had
any kind of international phoneplan for my phone.
What do I need to do to fixthat?
I mean, i is this a matter ofswitching SIM cards?
Is it is it contacting my phonecarrier and just signing up for
some expensive plan?
Uh, what do I need to do so thatI can have internet access while
I'm abroad?
SPEAKER_00 (14:53):
Well, regarding the step alerts, I would say
checking those when you're onWi-Fi would be sufficient.
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (14:58):
Okay.
That's not a minute-by-minutething.
That's a maybe a day-by-day.
Right.
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (15:04):
But you know, with your phones, there's all kinds
of options with that.
That's a it's a complex subject,but Well, I know you love IT.
SPEAKER_01 (15:14):
And so you you were saying that that was your
favorite subject.
SPEAKER_00 (15:16):
Yeah, yeah.
No, that's okay.
I I think that first you need tomake sure your phone is
unlocked.
It may not be unlocked, so itmay not be capable of taking
local SIM cards.
But what I do is I have a it Ido an eSIM on my phone.
Okay, and I'll get the SIM cardbefore I land.
(15:36):
So when I land, if I've got allmy settings right, it'll
automatically start giving meservice.
Okay.
And if it doesn't work by thetime I get off the airplane, uh,
I will consider whether I needto go to uh a booth and get a
local SIM card put in.
But your phone has to beunlocked to do that.
SPEAKER_01 (15:56):
Because I've heard travelers talk about that.
They get off the airplane andthey go get a local SIM card.
I've actually never done that.
That that's not something I'veever done before.
And so if you want to be on thelocal networks, that should work
typically.
SPEAKER_00 (16:11):
Oh yeah.
You can get a local SIM cardabout anywhere.
Uh there's some places you go.
I was in, I think, Tanzania, andthere was no eSIM option at that
time.
I'm sure that's changing.
And so I then I had to get alocal local SIM card there, but
very common.
SPEAKER_01 (16:28):
In my perception, mobile phone technology spread
across the world and became justreally uh it was a really
powerful tool for people, uh,for local people in in many,
many, many countries.
And so I've been surprised athow well that technology has
been adopted where othertechnologies in the 20th to 21st
(16:49):
century didn't necessarilyspread everywhere.
It was sort of like a firstworld luxury and not a third
world uh reality.
But have you ever been somewherewhere they just didn't have cell
phone towers in recent years?
I mean, I mean, obviously someremote place where there's no
people, yeah, you know, but butI mean most places you would
travel to, if they have anairport, they have some kind of
(17:13):
cell phone coverage, usually,right?
SPEAKER_00 (17:15):
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
And anywhere that someone isgoing to be traveling for for
entertainment is gonna have it.
And if they don't, it's becauseyou're purposely putting
yourself in a remote place forthe sake of tourism.
Right, like mountain climbing orsomething.
Yeah.
Now you need to look at in-reachdevices, satellite phones,
(17:36):
things like that if you want tomaintain communication.
SPEAKER_01 (17:39):
Okay.
All right, let's go back tothreat monitoring.
What else should you be lookingfor?
SPEAKER_00 (17:45):
You can do Google Alerts, that's one option, which
will basically drag the internetand send you articles uh as you
put in like hashtags that you'respecifically looking for, like
you could put in Delhi andProtest.
And then it's gonna the same waythat the government would email
you the STEP program uhinformation, it's just gonna
(18:07):
give you the news article, whichis good if you're looking to do
some kind of ongoing monitoring.
And you may just be reading theheadlines on the article.
Right.
I'm not saying you're gonna haveto go all the way deep in, but
yeah, if the situation changes,uh you're probably gonna get
information on it.
And when you're reading anarticle, you just want to look
(18:30):
at the source.
Any place that's has an editoris at least trying to get the
main facts right.
It may be skewed politically oneway or the other, it may be
sensationalized, it may betrying to fear you up, but
you're looking for the basicfacts of this happened and this
is where it happened.
You can a lot of times get thatinformation out of an article.
SPEAKER_01 (18:51):
So news networks, major newspapers, that kind of
thing.
They're at least trying to getthe basic facts right.
SPEAKER_00 (18:58):
Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01 (18:58):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (18:59):
Yeah, because there's some responsibility
there when you have an editorthat's producing something.
Now, random bloggers is justlooking at what's coming, yeah,
random blogger, what's comingover X.
I'm not saying those thingsdon't have their value, but for
the purpose of someonetraveling, you know, you you
probably we could talk aboutbreaking news and how important
(19:21):
that could be and how to getthose sources.
But right now we're just talkingabout getting the basic
information of what kind oftrajectory this is is on, as far
as the the unrest, and then alsowhere it's happening, if it's
happening.
SPEAKER_01 (19:36):
Yeah.
The when Puerto Vallarta washaving cars burned in the
street, the first photo I sawand the one that I showed my
family was actually AIgenerated.
It was not real.
SPEAKER_00 (19:46):
That's right.
SPEAKER_01 (19:47):
And so it was off of off of X, and and sure enough,
turned out not to be authentic.
SPEAKER_00 (19:54):
And I think this moves into another important
topic of uh just emotionalmanagement in these situations.
Because if you are with yourfamily or with a team and the
normal now is changing, wherenow we're looking at some kind
of unrest that may be uhbuilding, this is an opportunity
(20:15):
to really steal your peace onthis trip and get everybody
feared up because you're the guycollecting the information, a
lot of times you want to shareit, and in doing that, you're
fearing everybody up and you'rechanging the whole dynamic.
Having be being aware is good,being paranoid is something
(20:37):
different.
SPEAKER_01 (20:38):
Well, cops often struggle with that anyway.
I mean, every cop I know sitswith their back to the wall,
facing the door, you know, doingconstant threat analysis.
Do you have any recommendations?
I mean, I mean, it's hard tobreak out of that, and it's also
hard not to pass that on to yourfamily.
And you're you're causing themanxiety and fear that really may
(21:04):
not be necessary in allcircumstances.
Not everything is a 10 out of10.
So uh what's your recommendationfor that?
I mean, part of what you do ishelping people stay calm in
emergencies.
So, how do we how do we switchfrom getting things ratcheted up
to helping our family and ourfriends that we're traveling
with stay calm?
SPEAKER_00 (21:23):
Well, I jokingly say that my paranoia served me very
well as a law enforcementofficer.
Uh, but it's it's probably not agood thing to pass on to your
family and while you're onvacation.
And the reality is you're you'renot dealing with the things that
you would have to deal as dealwith as a law enforcement
officer.
Although something may bepossible, the likelihood is
(21:47):
still very low in almost all ofthese circumstances that you're
going to become victimized inthis, especially if you have
some sort of awareness of what'shappening and you have a plan.
I think that.
How you communicate is veryimportant because we can become
excited that something'shappening.
We can, you know, then say thisto our family members, and it
(22:11):
may be perceived in a differentway.
Uh, that that's they're not usedto dealing with stress and
anxiety, and it could reallyhave an eye high impact on them
emotionally, even though theimpact of the event is probably
not even likely.
I'm not a fan of keeping thingsfrom my family I never have, but
how you communicate it as you dothis is important, especially if
(22:34):
you're tracking the news, youcan become obsessed, and you can
kind of uh kind of lose the plotof why you're there in the first
place.
That's why I say at thebeginning: protests are normal,
demonstrations are normal,sometimes even violent,
violently.
You need to look at who's beingtargeted.
Most of the time they're upsetwith the government, they're not
(22:54):
upset with you at all.
They're not upset, they're nottargeting Americans, they're not
targeting Westerners.
SPEAKER_01 (23:00):
Yeah, uh, maybe we have a little bit too much um
main character syndrome where wethink everybody's watching us,
we're ever we're what everyoneelse is thinking about, and most
times people look at us and say,Oh, look, an American.
And then they go on with theirday.
They don't care.
It's it's not always that you'rethe center of attention.
SPEAKER_00 (23:23):
Just just tell them you're Canadian and it's no
problem.
SPEAKER_01 (23:26):
Yeah.
This next section of theinterview, I'm gonna drop it in
right here because it's a nicetransition to what I'm gonna
give you in future episodes,talking about contingency
planning for your family.
But here I was specificallythinking of Jake's recent
experience working around thewinter Olympics in Italy, and I
(23:48):
wanted to pick his brain aboutthe World Cup coming to North
America in 2026, and what wemight expect to have hundreds of
thousands of people coming infrom other cultures uh into
American cities.
Here's what he had to say.
You have a lot of experienceoverseas and a lot of different
(24:10):
countries, a lot of differentcultures.
And you were just recently atthe Olympics, but we have the
World Cup coming to us.
Local police are reallyinterested in all of these uh
foreign populations descendingupon our cities uh to root for
their football teams.
Do you think feel like there's asecurity risk there or is that
(24:32):
overblown?
SPEAKER_00 (24:33):
Well, soccer's a big deal.
I happened to be in Vietnam whenone of the biggest games was
occurring, and I had no ideathis was happening.
It was uh it was Vietnam versusThailand, and it was the game,
and we're heading to a downtownarea just because we wanted to
see this famous uh dragon bridgethat breathes fire and water and
(24:56):
all this stuff.
And we get in, and our cabdriver is just sucked into the
game on his phone.
He actually has a TV in his cab.
And and I start looking at allthe shop owners who have their
shops are sort of wide open, andthere's TV screens that I can
see.
Everybody's watching this game.
Every single shop we pass.
And what and what I didn't knowwas that I was being taken to
(25:19):
the epicenter of where thecelebration was because when we
got to this dragon bridge,there's this huge screen, I
mean, massive screen, andthere's, I don't know, thousands
of people with thousands ofscooters and motorcycles there,
and they're all just completelyenthralled with the game.
And and of course, Vietnam wins.
We didn't tell anybody we livedin Thailand, we just rooted for
(25:42):
Vietnam like everybody else.
And this massive celebration of,you know, so many Vietnamese
flags, and I mean it was it wasa huge party.
So yeah, the soccer is a bigdeal anywhere you go in the
world.
In some countries, there will bequote celebrations, unquote, uh
(26:03):
after the fact, and they can bepretty pretty destructive,
burning cars, doing things.
Uh these are more likedemonstrative crowds, right?
But I think when we look atlikelihood and probability, if
someone is traveling outside oftheir culture and they're in our
(26:23):
culture, same thing as you, youknow, if you travel to another
country, you're you're not inyour home country, you're you're
probably going to somewhatacclimate to how the celebration
is occurring where you're at, Iwould imagine.
SPEAKER_01 (26:36):
Okay.
So we probably shouldn't justexpect a one-to-one correlation.
You know, what we've seen inother places won't necessarily
be coming to American and NorthAmerican cities when the World
Cup matches happen.
I wouldn't imagine that.
Okay.
Well, I know, I know a lot ofour uh, you know, local police
commanders are have been inevery kind of security, meeting
(26:59):
with FIFA and federal governmentand and all kinds of interagency
cooperation trying to plan forthis.
So there's going to be thisreally heavy police presence,
uh, security around not only thematches, but the practices and
the populations with hundreds ofthousands of people coming into
(27:21):
the cities that are hosting,Kansas City being one of them,
and buying a propertiessometimes an hour or two-hour
drive away so that they can justbe near their team.
They don't even have tickets tothe match, they just want to be
near their team uh while they'rehere.
And so we can't.
SPEAKER_00 (27:37):
Yeah, I think any of these events they present a
potential target for bad actors,yeah.
Yeah, uh, threat actors thatanytime you put a bunch of
people uh and a bunch of camerasin one place, then obviously
this can become a temptingtarget for some kind of act of
terrorism or or demonstrations,as people, you know, it it
(28:00):
amplifies their grievance whenthey can get in front of a lot
of cameras.
From a strategic standpoint,when you're talking about some
kind of organized protest ordemonstration, yeah, these are
high potential events where uhyou can have people go on strike
because you know, hey,everybody's coming in from the
airport, and so if we uh and I'mnot saying this is a talk in
(28:22):
Kansas City, this is common inplaces where you know we know
that if we demonstrate or go onstrike now, it's really gonna
hurt the whole uh operationthat's being planned.
You can have those type ofdemonstrations as far as a mass
crowd that's a demonstrativecrowd that does violent,
destructive things after asporting event.
(28:44):
Have we seen that in KansasCity?
No.
SPEAKER_01 (28:46):
No.
SPEAKER_00 (28:47):
I don't know.
I don't think so.
So I would probably more look atthe high end of how we've
handled celebrations poorly inthe past.
Right.
And you know, it's funny becauseuh I'm from Missouri, and if you
hear gunshots in the country,people say you have good
neighbors, and if you heargunshots in the city, then they
(29:08):
say you have bad neighbors.
Yes.
But yeah, I mean, I would lookat what's happened as a
predictor of what what couldhappen or probably will.
SPEAKER_01 (29:17):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, there is a lot ofpreparation for for just what
you said demonstrations,terrorist attacks, that kind of
stuff, that will be uh very wellguarded against.
And the misbehavior by by soccerfans, I don't know if that's it
really as big a concern,although that does get talked
(29:38):
about a bunch.
SPEAKER_00 (29:38):
So yeah, I think if you're gonna go into these areas
with your family and participatein in things like uh, you know,
I know the parade was a was abig deal with the Chiefs
victory.
One of which one of which had ashooting at it.
And so I know a lot of guys thatwere there, yeah.
So if you're gonna participatein those things, this is where
(30:01):
the type of contingency planningcomes most in handy, especially
if you're gonna park somewhere along ways away and then commute
in somehow.
I don't know if that'shappening, but I think just
instinctively in our Americancontext where we drive
everywhere, the car is themeeting place.
Yeah.
If something happens, we don'twe don't discuss it, it's just
(30:24):
assumed that if I can't findyou, we're gonna come back to
the car.
But if you take the car awayfrom the equation because you've
you've busted in or you've donesomething, or they don't know
where the car is, yeah, becausethey're not paying attention.
By the way, one of my favoritethings to do is when people come
and see me in Thailand, I takethem to a big mall and we'll
(30:45):
park the car, and then we'llspend about an hour or something
in the mall, and then I'll lookat them, especially if it's a
younger person, and I'll say,Okay, take us back to the car.
Yeah.
Shock, surprise, panic.
And I'll actually it it drivesmy wife crazy because I have the
(31:05):
patience to do it.
I will just let them walk arounduntil they figure out where the
car is.
SPEAKER_01 (31:11):
But but that's an important lesson though, that
that you can't just have yourhead down, especially walking
around on a screen and notpaying attention to your
surroundings.
That that's a little bitdangerous.
It makes you more of a target.
It it creates a vulnerabilitythat doesn't have to exist.
SPEAKER_00 (31:28):
Yep.
And sometimes if I'm traveling,I'll create a group chat just
for that trip.
And then if we park the car orwe get off of a subway or a bus
stop or something, I'll drop apin in the chat where it is and
just drop a little note becausethey're they're probably not
(31:48):
paying attention, they probablycan't find their way back.
But if nothing else, they canopen up that that pin and
navigate.
And if you're travelingoverseas, have them download the
offline maps so that their mapsare actually gonna work even if
they don't have cell service.
That's excellent.
That's excellent.
But those are all good goodideas if you're gonna go into
(32:10):
the city and participate in someof this stuff because you may
feel like you haveaccountability.
You may be together, you may bestanding right next to each
other, sitting at a table, butif a if a threat event happens,
people become separated veryquickly.
You as a first responder, youmay instinctively run towards
the threat.
(32:31):
And your family may be movingaway from the threat.
So don't think because you'retogether that we're gonna be
able to maintain accountabilitynecessarily in an event.
SPEAKER_01 (32:42):
Or or have that false sense of security because
we're not traveling overseas,but we're going to this big
event in our own city, then hey,we're all familiar, right?
Well, your teenagers have notmemorized the 100 blocks of your
city like you have.
And so, and so you they're it'sappropriate to do some of this
preparation that we've talkedabout.
(33:05):
All right, we're going to stopright there.
But I have so much more to giveyou because I talked to Jake for
quite a while and have enoughfor multiple episodes.
And this next episode that I'mgoing to give you, we're going
to talk about contingencyplanning for your family,
especially maybe when yourfamily's not immediately with
you.
Uh, how do you designate rallypoints?
(33:28):
How do you use technology?
What are just some smart ways toprevent some problems?
He's got so much good stuff.
And so here's just a littlesneak peek next time on Hey
Chaplin.
SPEAKER_00 (33:44):
But we didn't hear from him for three days, uh,
which we sort of expected.
But once he got there, he had aheat stroke, he was carried down
to a river and dunked in theriver by the cooling mall before
he could be carried to a reallya bamboo hospital.
(34:05):
So he's in a very remote place,but when they dunked him in the
river, his cell phone slippedout of his pocket and ended up
at the bottom of the river.
So after days of hiking, he he'sokay now.
He wakes up in the hospital andit's a very, very remote
hospital, but it's um you knowthe problem is he doesn't have a
(34:26):
cell phone.
So he doesn't remember hispassword to his email.
And he doesn't, I don't think heknew my phone number, right?
You know, and I don't think heknew the password to his email.
So he just figures it out how tocommunicate with me all on its
(34:48):
own.
And I receive an email from astranger's email, and the the
headline is This Is Your SonHunter.
SPEAKER_01 (34:58):
The views expressed here are the personal views of
the hosts and our guests, and donot necessarily represent the
views of any law enforcementagency or its components.
If you like this episode, pleaseshare it with a cop or someone
who loves a cop.
Thank you for listening to HeyChaplin.
And as always, let's pray forpeace in our city.
Welcome to Hey Chaplin.
My name is Jared Altic and I'm achaplain with the police
department.
The Hey Chaplin podcast is abouttalking to police officers who
say, Hey Chaplain, I've got astory to tell and some
hard-earned wisdom to share.
The guests on Hey Chaplin comefrom across the world, from the
LAPD to Scotland Yard, fromThailand to South Africa.
(00:28):
They are sharing their wisdom sothat you don't have to learn the
hard way.
And as a patrol chaplain, Ithink you deserve something
positive and encouraging.
Hey Chaplin remains a freeresource to encourage police
(00:48):
officers, chaplains, and otherfirst responders around the
world because of supporters whoare quietly helping behind the
scenes.
If you want to help out likethis, just follow the link in
the episode description or theshow notes to support the show.
Today, backed by popular demand,is Jake, the International
(01:10):
Security Specialist Guy.
This time I'm catching up to himwhile he was at home in
Thailand.
Jake has been doing securitywork in troubled spots all over
the world and was graciousenough to drop in and let me
pick his brain on severaltopics.
In this episode, we're going totalk about traveling in a
country with civil unrest,demonstrations, and riots.
(01:34):
Jake's going to explain how toavoid trouble and take care of
your family while the streetsare shut down and the phone
service is cut off.
You'll like hearing a cop likeJake talk about this kind of
stuff.
And even if you're not leavingthe country anytime soon,
there's still a lot here for youto apply to other emergency
(01:57):
situations at home.
Here's Jake, the InternationalSecurity Specialist guy.
Hello, Jake.
How are you today?
SPEAKER_00 (02:09):
I'm good.
How are you?
It's been a while since we gotto see each other.
SPEAKER_01 (02:13):
Yeah, it was great having you when you were
visiting the United States.
Uh, you actually came by myoffice, which I hugely
appreciated.
And now we're 12 time zonesaway, and and I've got you on
the video screen.
So I'm glad to have you here.
Good to be here.
We're gonna talk today aboutwhen we travel overseas, running
into civil unrests and protests.
SPEAKER_00 (02:36):
You know, what I always want to be careful to do
is not to fear people up totravel by talking about these
subjects, because while thereality is that protests and
demonstrations and all of thesethings are very common, uh, at
the same time, they're verycommon in the US, and people
frequently travel in the US, andthere's there's not an issue.
(02:57):
And so they're common in the US,they're common in every country,
every European country.
I was in Paris during theOlympics, and there were
protests and demonstrationsgoing on every day.
I was just in uh Milan with theOlympics, and same thing, you
know, I'm tracking them on amap.
And the thing to keep in mind isthat these things are common.
(03:22):
You don't have to be going to uhsomewhere in Africa or
somewhere, you know, in a farremote place.
They're happening everywhere.
And don't be afraid to gonecessarily just because you see
something on the news that thistype of thing is occurring.
I think you just start from theperspective that these are
common and everywhere.
(03:43):
And so it's more about how do weavoid and mitigate as we go, and
it's less about being beingfeared up over the fact that
they're happening.
SPEAKER_01 (03:52):
Well, tell me what you saw in Italy.
So you were just at the WinterOlympics not long ago.
What kind of protests, what kindof civil unrest did you see
there?
SPEAKER_00 (04:02):
A range.
You know, at one level, peopleare just holding flags and
signs.
People are walking around themand taking photographs.
The the biggest grievance therewas that these people are
blocking uh the selfies thatpeople are are trying to take.
I mean, they're interferingbecause now you have a flag in
the background of a photographthat you're trying to take.
(04:24):
Right, right.
And on the other end of thescale, you had the riot police
that are using water cannons andarresting people and they're
shooting fireworks and beingviolent and people are being
injured.
SPEAKER_01 (04:38):
You had Americans there, you had people from from
almost every nation.
How do you think they handledthat?
I mean, were people holed up intheir hotel scared?
Were people just going about asnormal?
SPEAKER_00 (04:50):
I I would say most of them were situationally
unaware.
SPEAKER_01 (04:53):
Ah, okay.
SPEAKER_00 (04:54):
I don't I don't think most people even knew that
these things were taking place.
When you look at differentcountries, they have different
ways of dealing with this, andnone of this took the Italy uh
Italian law enforcement bysurprise.
Okay.
Usually the more experiencethese countries have with these
things, the more of a plan theyhave to deal with them.
SPEAKER_01 (05:14):
Now, this is off topic of what we had discussed
beforehand, but the proteststhat happen in Iran, where
there's reports that a fewthousand might have been killed
by their own government by theAyatollah, or maybe maybe twenty
thousand or thirty thousand.
Do you have a feel for even Imean, we're hearing this these
(05:35):
reports from from the outside?
Were the numbers more on the lowend or the high end, do you
think?
SPEAKER_00 (05:40):
I I couldn't tell you, but my guess would be
either on the high end.
SPEAKER_01 (05:46):
Why?
Because that's a regime likefighting fighting to survive or
for a different reason.
SPEAKER_00 (05:54):
I think because of the blackout of information that
that you couldn't get.
I mean, they they shut all theability to communicate out, and
when they do that, there'susually a lot of no good that's
happening.
SPEAKER_01 (06:07):
What about in Mexico?
You saw in uh Puerto Vallarta,uh, there was uh in other cities
too, there were cartels thatlashed out.
Uh cartel leader was killed, andthen there were for a couple
days there was pretty severeviolence, and Mexico kind of got
shut down.
I mean, there were scaremongersout there that were like, like,
(06:27):
oh, this is you know, you can'tgo vacation to Mexico ever
again.
SPEAKER_00 (06:31):
I think on the escalation ladder, the um
Mexican cartel certainly couldhave done a lot more violence
than they didn't do very easily.
Lighting a gas station on fireor doing something like that,
whereas it makes great TV, itwas not even close to as violent
as they could have been if theychose to.
SPEAKER_01 (06:51):
What's your take on that?
That it was performative or thatthey were restrained for some
other reason?
SPEAKER_00 (06:57):
I mean, I'm not an analyst to to study all this,
but it it was not anuncontrolled violent lash out.
It was strategic at some level.
SPEAKER_01 (07:08):
They could have targeted a lot of people, but
yeah, instead they dragged carsout of the street and set them
on fire, and that seemed to beabout it in many cases.
SPEAKER_00 (07:18):
Yeah.
Yeah, made some great TV.
I'm not intimately familiar withall of the nuances of what
happened.
I mean, I'm sure people maybesomebody was violently attacked
and bad things happened, but I'mjust looking at it
superficially.
I don't follow a ton of thingsin South America.
I triage a little bit of myintel because it's overwhelming
(07:40):
to look at everything that I do.
Yeah.
So we do have people that lookat that and follow it closely,
but I follow right now I followSouth America pretty shallow.
SPEAKER_01 (07:49):
Okay.
Okay.
So Latin America's not high onyour list.
SPEAKER_00 (07:53):
It is a high on the list where things happen.
Yeah.
A lot of things happen downthere.
SPEAKER_01 (07:57):
How much of the year are you away from home?
SPEAKER_00 (08:01):
Probably around six months out of the year.
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (08:04):
It seems like every time I contact you, you're in a
different country.
And so I never know what timezone you're in.
It's like, yeah, I'm in Malta,or I'm in Italy, or I'm in in
Thailand, or whatever.
And and Thailand's home, but uhyou mentioned that last time,
but you've been Africa and andall over the place.
(08:24):
And so let's talk a little bitabout you're traveling overseas
and you run into civil unrest orprotests.
Where do we start?
SPEAKER_00 (08:33):
Well, I think the place to start is with a mindset
towards how do we avoid being ina situation we don't want to be
in.
Okay.
So the avoidance piece is a bigdeal.
It's great to talk about runningfor cover or shelter and getting
out of a crowd and what to do ifand all of that, but really the
(08:53):
skill is how do we avoid beingin the middle of something that
we don't want to be in themiddle of?
And that starts with uhassessing where you're going.
A lot of police officers arefamiliar with UDA.
That's a very common term thatwe have: observe, orientate,
decide, and act.
(09:14):
Well, this is really the theobservation and the orientation
phase.
How do we observe and orientatereally well so that we can avoid
something from happeningaltogether?
Yeah.
From from the UDA standpoint,when we're looking at observing
and orientating, this is mostlydone through open source
(09:34):
information.
SPEAKER_01 (09:35):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (09:35):
It's not like you're walk seeing a suspect walk
towards you and you're assessinghis behavior.
It's not that type ofobservation and orientation.
It's really a lot of Googlingand getting on the computer and
looking at information likethat.
SPEAKER_01 (09:50):
You're you're collecting publicly available
information that is out thereand is provided and hopefully
updated.
Uh, that's that's stuff that youshould be paying attention to
when you travel.
SPEAKER_00 (10:03):
And a lot of these things are they're being
reported in the news.
But most places that peopletravel to, like the Olympics or
like somewhere that's frequentedby tourists, if there is some
type of massive protest ordisruption, it's probably going
to be in the news.
Okay.
If it's ongoing.
And even even somewhere likeIndia, in 2022, I've got twin
(10:25):
boys.
And at the time they were 18years old, and some some young
lady that is in our circle, shehad to go from Thailand to India
to do a border run.
So you have to reset your visasometimes.
And she didn't have to go toIndia, but I thought, yeah, go
to India.
India is a great place, but ifyou're going to go, you need
(10:45):
some physical protection.
So I sent my two boys asbodyguards basically for this
friend of ours to do a borderrun.
But as we're researching,they're going to Delhi, and you
can see that there's theseongoing farmer protests that are
taking place.
Well, you can actually put pinson the map.
(11:08):
You can see where these areoccurring nightly.
So what we did, we just droppedthese on a map so that as my
kids are running around gettingtaxis, uh, they can see where
they don't want to go.
You know, this was not a reasonfor them not to go.
So they had a great time.
They avoided uh all the protestsvery easily just through a
(11:29):
little bit of research.
SPEAKER_01 (11:31):
Yeah, it wasn't complicated to put this on a
shared map and and know wherenot to go, and that alone was
enough to make the trip doable.
SPEAKER_00 (11:42):
Yeah, it's it's the difference between a aware
versus unaware.
Okay.
If you're just going and you'renot even thinking about security
or safety, then you could walkinto something that you don't
want to walk into.
I learned this lesson because Iwent to Malaysia, I went to
Kuala Lumpur a couple days afterTrump dropped a bomb on Salomani
(12:06):
in Iraq, if you remember all theway back then.
Yeah.
And we're walking, I'm walkingaround with my family, and all
of a sudden I started getting.
It's been great.
I'm walking around, no problems.
Uh now I see a bunch of guysthat are dressed differently.
They're standing on the street,and they're giving me very hard
(12:27):
eyes.
They're giving my family reallyhard eyes.
And it's like, what was thatplace?
What was happening?
Well, that was I looked on themap, that was the Pakistani
embassy.
Uh, and I don't I don't know whyall these guys were waiting
outside, but they werePakistani, and the sentiment was
uh a lot of people were angrywith Americans at that time, and
(12:48):
I thought, man, I should justdrop that on the map somewhere I
don't want to go and just avoidthis altogether.
So we took those lessons and weapplied it uh like two years
later to my boys.
SPEAKER_01 (12:59):
So Americans killed an Iranian in Iraq and the
Pakistani embassy in KualaLumpur was giving you side eye.
Right.
Oh, I'm just trying to keep thisstraight, you know.
Yeah, that's correct.
Okay.
All right.
Let's say there is something inthe news.
You're gonna travel to a countrywhere there's problems and
(13:21):
there's something is is is kindof you know popping off a little
bit, but you still feel likeit's safe to travel, or maybe
you're traveling for work.
How do you monitor the threatand that kind of thing?
SPEAKER_00 (13:33):
You definitely want to start with uh open source
monitoring.
I'll just drop different linkson a PDF or um something or a
Word document that I can clickon and look at uh through the
day, but things change, youknow, and if you're in a
situation where the normal nowis changing drastically, it's
probably going to be reportedon.
(13:55):
And one of the best places tolook, if it's at that scale,
would be the US embassy websitefor wherever you're going.
They have country reports thattell you what the baseline is in
on in a country on a normal day,but they also have embassy
alerts uh that will tell yourecent updates.
(14:18):
And uh this is your yourtactical intelligence, if you
will.
Okay.
And they'll they'll put thatinto the STEP program too, which
is something you can sign up foruh through the U.S.
Embassy, and that way you justget it right on an email on your
phone.
SPEAKER_01 (14:33):
Okay.
Now, several times I've been outof the country and I've not had
any kind of international phoneplan for my phone.
What do I need to do to fixthat?
I mean, i is this a matter ofswitching SIM cards?
Is it is it contacting my phonecarrier and just signing up for
some expensive plan?
Uh, what do I need to do so thatI can have internet access while
I'm abroad?
SPEAKER_00 (14:53):
Well, regarding the step alerts, I would say
checking those when you're onWi-Fi would be sufficient.
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (14:58):
Okay.
That's not a minute-by-minutething.
That's a maybe a day-by-day.
Right.
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (15:04):
But you know, with your phones, there's all kinds
of options with that.
That's a it's a complex subject,but Well, I know you love IT.
SPEAKER_01 (15:14):
And so you you were saying that that was your
favorite subject.
SPEAKER_00 (15:16):
Yeah, yeah.
No, that's okay.
I I think that first you need tomake sure your phone is
unlocked.
It may not be unlocked, so itmay not be capable of taking
local SIM cards.
But what I do is I have a it Ido an eSIM on my phone.
Okay, and I'll get the SIM cardbefore I land.
(15:36):
So when I land, if I've got allmy settings right, it'll
automatically start giving meservice.
Okay.
And if it doesn't work by thetime I get off the airplane, uh,
I will consider whether I needto go to uh a booth and get a
local SIM card put in.
But your phone has to beunlocked to do that.
SPEAKER_01 (15:56):
Because I've heard travelers talk about that.
They get off the airplane andthey go get a local SIM card.
I've actually never done that.
That that's not something I'veever done before.
And so if you want to be on thelocal networks, that should work
typically.
SPEAKER_00 (16:11):
Oh yeah.
You can get a local SIM cardabout anywhere.
Uh there's some places you go.
I was in, I think, Tanzania, andthere was no eSIM option at that
time.
I'm sure that's changing.
And so I then I had to get alocal local SIM card there, but
very common.
SPEAKER_01 (16:28):
In my perception, mobile phone technology spread
across the world and became justreally uh it was a really
powerful tool for people, uh,for local people in in many,
many, many countries.
And so I've been surprised athow well that technology has
been adopted where othertechnologies in the 20th to 21st
(16:49):
century didn't necessarilyspread everywhere.
It was sort of like a firstworld luxury and not a third
world uh reality.
But have you ever been somewherewhere they just didn't have cell
phone towers in recent years?
I mean, I mean, obviously someremote place where there's no
people, yeah, you know, but butI mean most places you would
travel to, if they have anairport, they have some kind of
(17:13):
cell phone coverage, usually,right?
SPEAKER_00 (17:15):
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
And anywhere that someone isgoing to be traveling for for
entertainment is gonna have it.
And if they don't, it's becauseyou're purposely putting
yourself in a remote place forthe sake of tourism.
Right, like mountain climbing orsomething.
Yeah.
Now you need to look at in-reachdevices, satellite phones,
(17:36):
things like that if you want tomaintain communication.
SPEAKER_01 (17:39):
Okay.
All right, let's go back tothreat monitoring.
What else should you be lookingfor?
SPEAKER_00 (17:45):
You can do Google Alerts, that's one option, which
will basically drag the internetand send you articles uh as you
put in like hashtags that you'respecifically looking for, like
you could put in Delhi andProtest.
And then it's gonna the same waythat the government would email
you the STEP program uhinformation, it's just gonna
(18:07):
give you the news article, whichis good if you're looking to do
some kind of ongoing monitoring.
And you may just be reading theheadlines on the article.
Right.
I'm not saying you're gonna haveto go all the way deep in, but
yeah, if the situation changes,uh you're probably gonna get
information on it.
And when you're reading anarticle, you just want to look
(18:30):
at the source.
Any place that's has an editoris at least trying to get the
main facts right.
It may be skewed politically oneway or the other, it may be
sensationalized, it may betrying to fear you up, but
you're looking for the basicfacts of this happened and this
is where it happened.
You can a lot of times get thatinformation out of an article.
SPEAKER_01 (18:51):
So news networks, major newspapers, that kind of
thing.
They're at least trying to getthe basic facts right.
SPEAKER_00 (18:58):
Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01 (18:58):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (18:59):
Yeah, because there's some responsibility
there when you have an editorthat's producing something.
Now, random bloggers is justlooking at what's coming, yeah,
random blogger, what's comingover X.
I'm not saying those thingsdon't have their value, but for
the purpose of someonetraveling, you know, you you
probably we could talk aboutbreaking news and how important
(19:21):
that could be and how to getthose sources.
But right now we're just talkingabout getting the basic
information of what kind oftrajectory this is is on, as far
as the the unrest, and then alsowhere it's happening, if it's
happening.
SPEAKER_01 (19:36):
Yeah.
The when Puerto Vallarta washaving cars burned in the
street, the first photo I sawand the one that I showed my
family was actually AIgenerated.
It was not real.
SPEAKER_00 (19:46):
That's right.
SPEAKER_01 (19:47):
And so it was off of off of X, and and sure enough,
turned out not to be authentic.
SPEAKER_00 (19:54):
And I think this moves into another important
topic of uh just emotionalmanagement in these situations.
Because if you are with yourfamily or with a team and the
normal now is changing, wherenow we're looking at some kind
of unrest that may be uhbuilding, this is an opportunity
(20:15):
to really steal your peace onthis trip and get everybody
feared up because you're the guycollecting the information, a
lot of times you want to shareit, and in doing that, you're
fearing everybody up and you'rechanging the whole dynamic.
Having be being aware is good,being paranoid is something
(20:37):
different.
SPEAKER_01 (20:38):
Well, cops often struggle with that anyway.
I mean, every cop I know sitswith their back to the wall,
facing the door, you know, doingconstant threat analysis.
Do you have any recommendations?
I mean, I mean, it's hard tobreak out of that, and it's also
hard not to pass that on to yourfamily.
And you're you're causing themanxiety and fear that really may
(21:04):
not be necessary in allcircumstances.
Not everything is a 10 out of10.
So uh what's your recommendationfor that?
I mean, part of what you do ishelping people stay calm in
emergencies.
So, how do we how do we switchfrom getting things ratcheted up
to helping our family and ourfriends that we're traveling
with stay calm?
SPEAKER_00 (21:23):
Well, I jokingly say that my paranoia served me very
well as a law enforcementofficer.
Uh, but it's it's probably not agood thing to pass on to your
family and while you're onvacation.
And the reality is you're you'renot dealing with the things that
you would have to deal as dealwith as a law enforcement
officer.
Although something may bepossible, the likelihood is
(21:47):
still very low in almost all ofthese circumstances that you're
going to become victimized inthis, especially if you have
some sort of awareness of what'shappening and you have a plan.
I think that.
How you communicate is veryimportant because we can become
excited that something'shappening.
We can, you know, then say thisto our family members, and it
(22:11):
may be perceived in a differentway.
Uh, that that's they're not usedto dealing with stress and
anxiety, and it could reallyhave an eye high impact on them
emotionally, even though theimpact of the event is probably
not even likely.
I'm not a fan of keeping thingsfrom my family I never have, but
how you communicate it as you dothis is important, especially if
(22:34):
you're tracking the news, youcan become obsessed, and you can
kind of uh kind of lose the plotof why you're there in the first
place.
That's why I say at thebeginning: protests are normal,
demonstrations are normal,sometimes even violent,
violently.
You need to look at who's beingtargeted.
Most of the time they're upsetwith the government, they're not
(22:54):
upset with you at all.
They're not upset, they're nottargeting Americans, they're not
targeting Westerners.
SPEAKER_01 (23:00):
Yeah, uh, maybe we have a little bit too much um
main character syndrome where wethink everybody's watching us,
we're ever we're what everyoneelse is thinking about, and most
times people look at us and say,Oh, look, an American.
And then they go on with theirday.
They don't care.
It's it's not always that you'rethe center of attention.
SPEAKER_00 (23:23):
Just just tell them you're Canadian and it's no
problem.
SPEAKER_01 (23:26):
Yeah.
This next section of theinterview, I'm gonna drop it in
right here because it's a nicetransition to what I'm gonna
give you in future episodes,talking about contingency
planning for your family.
But here I was specificallythinking of Jake's recent
experience working around thewinter Olympics in Italy, and I
(23:48):
wanted to pick his brain aboutthe World Cup coming to North
America in 2026, and what wemight expect to have hundreds of
thousands of people coming infrom other cultures uh into
American cities.
Here's what he had to say.
You have a lot of experienceoverseas and a lot of different
(24:10):
countries, a lot of differentcultures.
And you were just recently atthe Olympics, but we have the
World Cup coming to us.
Local police are reallyinterested in all of these uh
foreign populations descendingupon our cities uh to root for
their football teams.
Do you think feel like there's asecurity risk there or is that
(24:32):
overblown?
SPEAKER_00 (24:33):
Well, soccer's a big deal.
I happened to be in Vietnam whenone of the biggest games was
occurring, and I had no ideathis was happening.
It was uh it was Vietnam versusThailand, and it was the game,
and we're heading to a downtownarea just because we wanted to
see this famous uh dragon bridgethat breathes fire and water and
(24:56):
all this stuff.
And we get in, and our cabdriver is just sucked into the
game on his phone.
He actually has a TV in his cab.
And and I start looking at allthe shop owners who have their
shops are sort of wide open, andthere's TV screens that I can
see.
Everybody's watching this game.
Every single shop we pass.
And what and what I didn't knowwas that I was being taken to
(25:19):
the epicenter of where thecelebration was because when we
got to this dragon bridge,there's this huge screen, I
mean, massive screen, andthere's, I don't know, thousands
of people with thousands ofscooters and motorcycles there,
and they're all just completelyenthralled with the game.
And and of course, Vietnam wins.
We didn't tell anybody we livedin Thailand, we just rooted for
(25:42):
Vietnam like everybody else.
And this massive celebration of,you know, so many Vietnamese
flags, and I mean it was it wasa huge party.
So yeah, the soccer is a bigdeal anywhere you go in the
world.
In some countries, there will bequote celebrations, unquote, uh
(26:03):
after the fact, and they can bepretty pretty destructive,
burning cars, doing things.
Uh these are more likedemonstrative crowds, right?
But I think when we look atlikelihood and probability, if
someone is traveling outside oftheir culture and they're in our
(26:23):
culture, same thing as you, youknow, if you travel to another
country, you're you're not inyour home country, you're you're
probably going to somewhatacclimate to how the celebration
is occurring where you're at, Iwould imagine.
SPEAKER_01 (26:36):
Okay.
So we probably shouldn't justexpect a one-to-one correlation.
You know, what we've seen inother places won't necessarily
be coming to American and NorthAmerican cities when the World
Cup matches happen.
I wouldn't imagine that.
Okay.
Well, I know, I know a lot ofour uh, you know, local police
commanders are have been inevery kind of security, meeting
(26:59):
with FIFA and federal governmentand and all kinds of interagency
cooperation trying to plan forthis.
So there's going to be thisreally heavy police presence,
uh, security around not only thematches, but the practices and
the populations with hundreds ofthousands of people coming into
(27:21):
the cities that are hosting,Kansas City being one of them,
and buying a propertiessometimes an hour or two-hour
drive away so that they can justbe near their team.
They don't even have tickets tothe match, they just want to be
near their team uh while they'rehere.
And so we can't.
SPEAKER_00 (27:37):
Yeah, I think any of these events they present a
potential target for bad actors,yeah.
Yeah, uh, threat actors thatanytime you put a bunch of
people uh and a bunch of camerasin one place, then obviously
this can become a temptingtarget for some kind of act of
terrorism or or demonstrations,as people, you know, it it
(28:00):
amplifies their grievance whenthey can get in front of a lot
of cameras.
From a strategic standpoint,when you're talking about some
kind of organized protest ordemonstration, yeah, these are
high potential events where uhyou can have people go on strike
because you know, hey,everybody's coming in from the
airport, and so if we uh and I'mnot saying this is a talk in
(28:22):
Kansas City, this is common inplaces where you know we know
that if we demonstrate or go onstrike now, it's really gonna
hurt the whole uh operationthat's being planned.
You can have those type ofdemonstrations as far as a mass
crowd that's a demonstrativecrowd that does violent,
destructive things after asporting event.
(28:44):
Have we seen that in KansasCity?
No.
SPEAKER_01 (28:46):
No.
SPEAKER_00 (28:47):
I don't know.
I don't think so.
So I would probably more look atthe high end of how we've
handled celebrations poorly inthe past.
Right.
And you know, it's funny becauseuh I'm from Missouri, and if you
hear gunshots in the country,people say you have good
neighbors, and if you heargunshots in the city, then they
(29:08):
say you have bad neighbors.
Yes.
But yeah, I mean, I would lookat what's happened as a
predictor of what what couldhappen or probably will.
SPEAKER_01 (29:17):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, there is a lot ofpreparation for for just what
you said demonstrations,terrorist attacks, that kind of
stuff, that will be uh very wellguarded against.
And the misbehavior by by soccerfans, I don't know if that's it
really as big a concern,although that does get talked
(29:38):
about a bunch.
SPEAKER_00 (29:38):
So yeah, I think if you're gonna go into these areas
with your family and participatein in things like uh, you know,
I know the parade was a was abig deal with the Chiefs
victory.
One of which one of which had ashooting at it.
And so I know a lot of guys thatwere there, yeah.
So if you're gonna participatein those things, this is where
(30:01):
the type of contingency planningcomes most in handy, especially
if you're gonna park somewhere along ways away and then commute
in somehow.
I don't know if that'shappening, but I think just
instinctively in our Americancontext where we drive
everywhere, the car is themeeting place.
Yeah.
If something happens, we don'twe don't discuss it, it's just
(30:24):
assumed that if I can't findyou, we're gonna come back to
the car.
But if you take the car awayfrom the equation because you've
you've busted in or you've donesomething, or they don't know
where the car is, yeah, becausethey're not paying attention.
By the way, one of my favoritethings to do is when people come
and see me in Thailand, I takethem to a big mall and we'll
(30:45):
park the car, and then we'llspend about an hour or something
in the mall, and then I'll lookat them, especially if it's a
younger person, and I'll say,Okay, take us back to the car.
Yeah.
Shock, surprise, panic.
And I'll actually it it drivesmy wife crazy because I have the
(31:05):
patience to do it.
I will just let them walk arounduntil they figure out where the
car is.
SPEAKER_01 (31:11):
But but that's an important lesson though, that
that you can't just have yourhead down, especially walking
around on a screen and notpaying attention to your
surroundings.
That that's a little bitdangerous.
It makes you more of a target.
It it creates a vulnerabilitythat doesn't have to exist.
SPEAKER_00 (31:28):
Yep.
And sometimes if I'm traveling,I'll create a group chat just
for that trip.
And then if we park the car orwe get off of a subway or a bus
stop or something, I'll drop apin in the chat where it is and
just drop a little note becausethey're they're probably not
(31:48):
paying attention, they probablycan't find their way back.
But if nothing else, they canopen up that that pin and
navigate.
And if you're travelingoverseas, have them download the
offline maps so that their mapsare actually gonna work even if
they don't have cell service.
That's excellent.
That's excellent.
But those are all good goodideas if you're gonna go into
(32:10):
the city and participate in someof this stuff because you may
feel like you haveaccountability.
You may be together, you may bestanding right next to each
other, sitting at a table, butif a if a threat event happens,
people become separated veryquickly.
You as a first responder, youmay instinctively run towards
the threat.
(32:31):
And your family may be movingaway from the threat.
So don't think because you'retogether that we're gonna be
able to maintain accountabilitynecessarily in an event.
SPEAKER_01 (32:42):
Or or have that false sense of security because
we're not traveling overseas,but we're going to this big
event in our own city, then hey,we're all familiar, right?
Well, your teenagers have notmemorized the 100 blocks of your
city like you have.
And so, and so you they're it'sappropriate to do some of this
preparation that we've talkedabout.
(33:05):
All right, we're going to stopright there.
But I have so much more to giveyou because I talked to Jake for
quite a while and have enoughfor multiple episodes.
And this next episode that I'mgoing to give you, we're going
to talk about contingencyplanning for your family,
especially maybe when yourfamily's not immediately with
you.
Uh, how do you designate rallypoints?
(33:28):
How do you use technology?
What are just some smart ways toprevent some problems?
He's got so much good stuff.
And so here's just a littlesneak peek next time on Hey
Chaplin.
SPEAKER_00 (33:44):
But we didn't hear from him for three days, uh,
which we sort of expected.
But once he got there, he had aheat stroke, he was carried down
to a river and dunked in theriver by the cooling mall before
he could be carried to a reallya bamboo hospital.
(34:05):
So he's in a very remote place,but when they dunked him in the
river, his cell phone slippedout of his pocket and ended up
at the bottom of the river.
So after days of hiking, he he'sokay now.
He wakes up in the hospital andit's a very, very remote
hospital, but it's um you knowthe problem is he doesn't have a
(34:26):
cell phone.
So he doesn't remember hispassword to his email.
And he doesn't, I don't think heknew my phone number, right?
You know, and I don't think heknew the password to his email.
So he just figures it out how tocommunicate with me all on its
(34:48):
own.
And I receive an email from astranger's email, and the the
headline is This Is Your SonHunter.
SPEAKER_01 (34:58):
The views expressed here are the personal views of
the hosts and our guests, and donot necessarily represent the
views of any law enforcementagency or its components.
If you like this episode, pleaseshare it with a cop or someone
who loves a cop.
Thank you for listening to HeyChaplin.
And as always, let's pray forpeace in our city.
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