figures, both foreign and domestic, to ensure they are protected on arrival and on departure. The Emergency Services Unit, an entity trained in the use and deployment of special weapons and tactics, are the first responders to any high-risk critical incident such as an aircraft hijacking or an active shooter. These officers monitor and study global terrorist incidents, develop plans and train daily to respond should a similar incident occur at LAX.
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...the busier the airport, the harder it is for patrol cars to get around. As a result, LAX has a Bicycle Unit which provides fast movement within the terminals...”
With the heightened threat of vehicle- borne improvised explosive devices (VBIED), LAX created a Commercial Enforcement Unit comprising of vehicle and motorcycle officers who focus mainly on commercial vehicles entering the airport grounds. They conduct inspections to ensure that each commercial vehicle has the proper equipment and credentials to operate at LAX. The Training and Research Unit
ensures that each officer has the best training available and that the department remains at the forefront of aviation security and law enforcement. The Video Surveillance Unit monitors all the closed circuit television cameras in and around LAX. They assist officers in identifying suspects during crimes in progress and also guide officers safely to suspicious persons or unknown trouble calls. Unknown trouble calls are high priority calls where police services are needed and dispatched, yet it is unclear exactly what type of situation the officer is responding to. There are two units which make the Los Angeles Airport Police distinct from conventional police departments. These are the first units of their kind in the United States and are units which have been duplicated by many other airport police departments worldwide. The Critical Infrastructure and Protection Unit (CIPU) identifies all essential buildings related to LAX and develops plans and procedures to protect these
June 2012 Aviationsecurityinternational
facilities. CIPU works closely with other law enforcement agencies at LAX to ensure that each entity’s response plan is cohesive and clearly understands its role during an emergency. The Vulnerability Assessment & Analysis Unit (VAAU) ensures that LAX maintains federal security compliance. VAAU also reviews and monitors all construction projects during the ongoing modernisation of LAX. VAAU is known to have created the Cargo Task Force where they coordinate all enforcement agencies and conduct a thorough top to bottom inspection of the cargo areas. Both CIPU and VAAU work together to develop table-top and real-time exercises for airport tenants to ensure that they are aware of the current threats, the procedures of the first responders and their expectations upon arriving on scene.
The Airport Police has a non-sworn
division which assists in the enforcement and protection of the airport. These Security Officers are deployed to maintain the integrity of access points into the airfield and to ensure that there is free flowing traffic in LAX’s central terminal area. They provide a very important layer of safety and security particularly as it relates to the constant threat of terrorism.
Unfortunately the development of these units is a result of both planned and actual attacks at LAX. Each officer must take into consideration all the potential dangers that he/she could encounter while working. These potential dangers add up and change almost daily based on intelligence received from both foreign and domestic counterterrorism organisations. On 29 April 2005, the Los Angeles Airport Police lost its first officer in the line of duty when Officer Tommy Edward Scott was killed. Scott stopped a suspicious man who then jumped into the officer’s patrol vehicle and drove off whilst the officer was trying to extricate him. Scott was thrown, at high speed, into a fire hydrant and was killed instantly. Many airports are not as fortunate as LAX and lack the resources and units to properly protect their activities. It is important for each airport to conduct a self assessment of their resources, the threats faced, and contingency plans to determine which areas need the most attention.
At LAX, there are vehicle checkpoints positioned at the entrances to the central terminal area (CTA). It is widely known that terrorists spend a lot of time monitoring behaviour patterns in the security at airports. This allows them to identify specific times to either get the contraband into secured areas or identify the best time to attack. Dr. Milind Tambe, Professor Erroll Southers and graduate students from the University of Southern California developed a system to randomise deployments of resources (in this case personnel to vehicle checkpoints) called, “Assistant for Randomized Monitoring over Routes” (ARMOR). The purpose of ARMOR is to reduce the risk of successful terrorist surveillance operations designed to determine the feasibility of delivering large vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs) to LAX. This programme maximises security through mathematical randomisation, using algorithms to determine which resources are deployed, where, and at what time. ARMOR is an intelligent deterrent as it is mathematically impossible to identify a pattern in the deployment of resources at an airport. The programme is not airport-specific and has been used for the deployment of resources in other modes of transportation. For that matter, ARMOR is also not specific to law enforcement. Dr. Tambe and Professor Southers have written a book entitled, “Security and Game Theory” which examines the concepts of ARMOR in detail.
Anthony Boisselle has over 13 years of Aviation Law Enforcement experience, specifically in the areas of tactical operations, federal security regulations,
and counterterrorism. He is considered a subject matter expert in the area of airport regulations and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Security Directives. He is a certified Airport Security Coordinator, and an Airport Certified Employee in Security through AAAE (American Association of Airport Executives). He won his agency's Officer of the Year award in 2006 and was the recipient of the ‘Outstanding Individual in Aviation Security – Front Line Staff’ award at the 2011 AVSEC Conference in Hong Kong.
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