World Without Oil: Escalation
May. 17th, 2007 08:58 pmIn a World Without Oil
Disclaimer: this is not real. This is a fictional post based on the World Without Oil universe. No confidential or proprietary information or intelligence was used in the creation of this post. This disclaimer is quite real.
I am interviewing an applicant and explaining to his bright, eager, wants to join law enforcement self that he needs one year of security experience to work armed.
The receptionist interrupts on the intercom, which I hate, and it takes something massive to get her to do that.
"Andrew, we have an officer-involved shooting. The guard is on the phone and sounds really upset."
I pick up the phone. "Who is this? Identify yourself."
The voice is excited and terrified, "Officer James Smith, I work the gate at Extaco DC."
"What is happening?"
"Two guys with guns just shot their way through the gate. My partner's been shot! What do I do? What do I do?" I hear faint POP POP sounds in the background. Gunfire.
He's lost it. Condition Black. Like a bird rattling a plate glass window. I use command voice.
"Listen to me. Call nine one one now. Tell the dispatcher what you just told me. Then stay alive. Help your partner if you can, but Stay Alive." Click. I call the front desk. "Mary. Call Milpitas PD emergency line. Armed robbery in progress, shots fired, guard down, more guards on scene. Extaco distribution center."
I get up and stick my head in the supervisor's bullpen. The armed supervisor is there. "Epifano! Get your spare gun and spare ammunition and body armor and meet me at my car in ten seconds!" He knows me. He moves. Go to the conference room where a first aid class is under way. "John! Dismiss the class. Get the 02 and trauma bags and five sets of body armor and five traffic vests and meet at my car." I glance around the room. "Alice! Joe! With me, now! Life And Death." Alice is a former Army MP. Joe has a conviction for street racing and drives a souped-up Subaru Impreza WRX. I go to the safe and get my gun. I've been keeping my armor, uniform and belt gear at the office "just in case" ever since the news turned so far south.
Ninety seconds later we're at my car. "Armed robbery in progress, Extaco DC. We are going there, now. In harm's way. If you have a problem with that, go upstairs."
They all stay. Good.
"Everyone put on body armor then a traffic vest. Joe, you're driving. John, you're the medic. I'm shotgun." I hand a gun to Alice. "Get ammo. You and Epifano are my shooters. Mission: to save lives. Mission: to save lives. We are going to the front gatehouse. We are going to all stick together. I am going to see what we can do without getting killed. Questions?"
Epifano: "Can we shoot back?"
"Yes, if you think you can get hits."
Twenty seconds later we are racing to the Extaco DC, which is a mere fifteen minutes away. I turn to Joe. "Drive it like you stole it. I'll pay your fines and your bail."
Six minutes later and some bruises from seat belts we roll up on the Extaco refinery gate. I am watching closely as we approach down a long cul-de-sac street going only about ninety miles per hour. There is a single police cruiser parked out front of the gate, abandoned with lights running and drivers door and trunk open. A guy in a uniform is crouched behind the gatehouse, using it for cover with his gun in his hand. One of mine.
Epifano and I have discussed this. No guarantee that one of mine is not in it with the bandits.
As we dismount with gear I say "Epifano, Alice, check on him." The three of us draw our handguns. "Joe and John, with me. STAY BEHIND ME."
I walk over to the gatehouse. I shout my name and my company's name. I hear a feeble moan. I crouch and stick my head into the fatal funnel formed by the open gatehouse door. Down by the floor, I'm not interested in being a bullet magnet. Seeing what I see, I holster my handgun.
"John!" I motion him forward. He already has nitrile gloves on as he is a former paramedic, not a shooter. He starts evaluating my other officer, who has been shot at least twice and has bloody speckled lips. His first act is to disarm him. Wounded people with guns, bad idea.
"Joe. You're trained for out here, right?"
"Yes, sir!" Yes he is, I remember now, we had to remove him, he kept reading race car magazines. Here's hoping he remembered something.
"Get in here. Open all the gates on remote."
"What?"
"Open all the gates. We want these guys to get away without shooting anyone else. Let the police kill them once they're not surrounded by tanks full of fuel. If they're still inside, the cops need to get in after them."
"Oh." He goes to the computer and does it. I come up on the cameras, standard Pelco rig. I've got three PTZs where I need them. I pull up the facility on cameras. I grab a radio with clip and mike from the charger rack and I broadcast on the radio. "Anyone on this net, reply! This is Security!" No answer. "Do you see the bad guys? If you can, tell us where they are!"
Two police cars come whipping up the road and see our two vehicles. The officers stop fifty feet short, dismount, go immediately to their trunks and remove M-16 rifles and gear bags.
On camera #5 about three hundred feet away, two guys are fumbling under the hood of a tanker-trailer truck. Both have slung AK-class rifles. A third guy is dragging himself into the passenger side of the cab, with difficulty. His rifle is discarded. I make sure the RECORD light on the master panel is lit.
I walk out to the officers and raise my hands to the air.
"[Name], [Company]. You've got three bad guys. Two have AK rifles. They're behind the second tank over there to the left, trying to hotwire a tanker truck. What do you want us to do?"
The cop now has to make a snap decision. He sees me and three other armed security, plus our abandoned vehicle. Are we part of the solution or part of the problem?
My radio decides it for him. A scared voice blurts out over the air, "They're behind the master fill tank, they've got a truck. Three of them, two have rifles."
The lead cop points at us. "You three with guns, FOLLOW ME." To the other cop, "Stay here and if that truck comes out, light up the engine block and DON'T MISS."
We walk into the tank yard in a clump. Another cop is covered behind a fire hydrant with his rifle. The cop transmits on his net, "Dispatch, this is 71. I am with 56 and three armed guards fifty yards north of the main gate from Kelley Avenue. Three bad guys with rifles. Timeline on SWAT?"
"SWAT has been called out, no word yet on ETA. Staging at Montague and Junction. Have you seen 52?"
"Copy. Negative on 52. Active shooter protocol. Intent to attack and neutralize the threat, time now. Request backup and paramedics to stage."
"Good luck, 71."
"Listen, security guys. We're all going to walk around the corner at the same time. They are going to see us. I am going to tell them to drop their guns. If they don't, we're all going to shoot. Think about your backstops. Don't hit the fuel tanker!"
Alice speaks up.
"Officer, don't worry about the fuel tanker or the tanks. A stray round or two into them isn't going to start a fire. Worry about the pump assembly and pipes and hoses."
"Thanks."
With that, we walk around the corner and violate Rule #1 of armed security work. Never start a gunfight.
I see the guy climbing into the driver's side continue to do so. I see the guy pulling out his erstwhile wounded buddy, who is feebly resisting, drop him and reach around for his rifle.
"POLICE! HANDS UP, NOW!" We are in bullet time. Tunnel vision, hands shaking, have to remember to breathe. If you've been there, you know. If not, understand that the best of us are perhaps 10% to 15% of what we are on a good day. An expert marksman can barely hit the target. An average marksman may fire a few rounds that go nowhere near the target. A poor marksman will freeze, or panic, or simply hide.
A series of pops from Epifano and splotches of red appear on the passenger-side shooter, whose rifle had been in his hands. This is not paintball. That's a kill. He walks sideways and keeps shooting until six rounds are fired, then promptly reloads from his belt.
The truck engine starts. Both police officers line up their rifles and open fire full auto on the truck engine, walking their rounds up into the windshield, which promptly stars and shatters.
The police flank right on the driver's side. Epifano is already flanking left and scanning for other threats. Alice and I are fixated on the passenger side. We are all angled to avoid Polish Firing Squad.
A hand flops out of the truck. Then the third bad guy slides out and hits the ground, bonelessly. I can see from the quantity of spurting blood that he took a hit in the neck, and that the only emergency medical treatment he requires involves the application of a body bag.
Neither Alice nor myself have fired, though we wait with guns out. We wait as sirens build in the distance.
"Don't approach them! Hold what we got!" shouts the police officer. He transmits rapidly into his radio, "77, three bad guys down and dead, just north of the main gate." Dispatch acknowledges and starts calling for 52. No answer. Still no answer.
"83, I need paramedics for a down officer, we're by the fire water tank, I don't know where."
"I know where that is," I hear myself saying to the officer. Then I click the radio, "Joe, John, are you on?"
"This is Joe. John is here. We've got cops and firemen here at the gate."
"Flag down a cop, point out the fire water tank on the map. They're probably on the east side between the fire pump room and the tank. You can see it on Camera #6."
"Got it!"
About a minute later, two police cruisers slowly idle forward with walking police escorts, rifles leveled. They pass us and head directly for the fire water tank. In the back of the second cruiser is a Milpitas fire paramedic wearing black body armor over his turnout gear. It would look silly but not nearly as silly as what we are wearing.
There's lots of dispatch traffic. Lots more police. An ambulance. No one is approaching the dead bodies. Us security people, feeling horribly out of place, guns still out. Police form a perimeter around the tanker truck.
"Security guys, go ahead and holster, we're going to do the approach now." SWAT team members in body armor with shields approach and handcuff all three suspects. None of them move or twitch. Probably at least one of them just bled to death with the wind whistling past the tanks, while we stayed back and did nothing. That is how it works. You don't risk your life to save downed bad guys. You just don't.
Back to the pace of reality. We walk back out to the gate because we have a perimeter to secure. SWAT will sweep the interior. I have Joe move the car and send Alice with a radio to shadow the IC and pass on his directions to us. I run the gate controls and the console. John strips off his gloves and finishes his run form . . . our officer has been transported by paramedics. I call the office and have them send the field account manager to meet our guy at the hospital. They are relieved to hear that any of us are still alive.
Then I call the client security manager, who is not based at this location. He is shocked. He promises to head right down with his CEO and his VP and his legal department and his HR and his crisis management and his . . . I call his backup, just in case he is too shell-shocked to function. Then I call my office and ask for four more armed guards.
We are each interviewed by detectives. We show our IDs and permits. Epifano has to give up his revolver and all the ammo he was carrying for ballstics testing. I discreetly hand him my firearm and ammunition, then put my gunbelt away. The cops are a little surprised but say nothing. I'd much rather have him armed than myself. I've read his resume, you see, and security is definitely his retirement job. Definitely. He doesn't need crisis counseling either. Maybe in a few hours, but not now.
Once the detectives are done with him, I debrief Officer James Smith, whose frantic call to work instead of to emergency services got us here. His partner was standing outside for a smoke, approached a passenger van presumably to ask what they thought they were doing at the truck gate, and when the van side door opened up, something told James to duck out of sight. Then he heard the shots and hid. After they drove through he called work because that was the first number listed on the contact sheet. After talking to me he called 911 and the first officer rolled up and went rushing in. Apparently there were FOUR bad guys. That officer -- callsign 52 -- killed one, wounded another and disabled their van despite being shot in the gut multiple times with an AK.
I am taking notes for our reports. The computer and printer still work, so I print reports out and E-mail and fax to the client's corporate security team, CC'd to my corporate. John gets the clearance from the crime scene team (who are more interested in the fate of the bad guys, since the crimes committed prior to their deaths will be resolved by a Higher Authority) to clean up, then does the bloodborne pathogens thing with the blood trail on the floor of the guard shack.
My backup guards arrive at pretty much the same time as the media. I meet them.
"The media will ask you questions. You know nothing. Give them the office number and apologize that you are on duty and cannot speak to them. The office will forward them to HQ, which will dump them to voicemail. Got it?"
So when the cameras are set up, they see:
A line of armed guards. A parked security vehicle outside the guard shack with our logo prominent. Going to have to replace the tires, but life is like that. Stacked fire and police vehicles along the street, mostly outside our perimeter. Alice and Epifano logging in and out gate traffic, including the emergency services people.
And not a single camera view of the shooting scene. Can't see it from here. Neener neener. Get your ghoul shot somewhere else.
I hear rotor blades. News chopper flying nearby, dipping a bit lower to push the boundary, trying to get an angle on the incident. I get the set of binoculars and read off the tail number, then look up the phone number I need.
"Hello, FAA? Yes, I'd like to file a complaint on a low-flying aircraft . . ."
When Joe begs to take the binoculars and go outside the guard shack for a better look, I let him. The media pilot correctly infers that his license is in grave danger and amends his altitude . . . and attitude . . . accordingly.
Crazy people do crazy things, and escalate even to deadly violence, but order will be restored. Even in a World Without Oil.
I make note of the phone calls and actions I will take starting tomorrow morning.
Disclaimer: this is not real. This is a fictional post based on the World Without Oil universe. No confidential or proprietary information or intelligence was used in the creation of this post. This disclaimer is quite real.
Disclaimer: this is not real. This is a fictional post based on the World Without Oil universe. No confidential or proprietary information or intelligence was used in the creation of this post. This disclaimer is quite real.
I am interviewing an applicant and explaining to his bright, eager, wants to join law enforcement self that he needs one year of security experience to work armed.
The receptionist interrupts on the intercom, which I hate, and it takes something massive to get her to do that.
"Andrew, we have an officer-involved shooting. The guard is on the phone and sounds really upset."
I pick up the phone. "Who is this? Identify yourself."
The voice is excited and terrified, "Officer James Smith, I work the gate at Extaco DC."
"What is happening?"
"Two guys with guns just shot their way through the gate. My partner's been shot! What do I do? What do I do?" I hear faint POP POP sounds in the background. Gunfire.
He's lost it. Condition Black. Like a bird rattling a plate glass window. I use command voice.
"Listen to me. Call nine one one now. Tell the dispatcher what you just told me. Then stay alive. Help your partner if you can, but Stay Alive." Click. I call the front desk. "Mary. Call Milpitas PD emergency line. Armed robbery in progress, shots fired, guard down, more guards on scene. Extaco distribution center."
I get up and stick my head in the supervisor's bullpen. The armed supervisor is there. "Epifano! Get your spare gun and spare ammunition and body armor and meet me at my car in ten seconds!" He knows me. He moves. Go to the conference room where a first aid class is under way. "John! Dismiss the class. Get the 02 and trauma bags and five sets of body armor and five traffic vests and meet at my car." I glance around the room. "Alice! Joe! With me, now! Life And Death." Alice is a former Army MP. Joe has a conviction for street racing and drives a souped-up Subaru Impreza WRX. I go to the safe and get my gun. I've been keeping my armor, uniform and belt gear at the office "just in case" ever since the news turned so far south.
Ninety seconds later we're at my car. "Armed robbery in progress, Extaco DC. We are going there, now. In harm's way. If you have a problem with that, go upstairs."
They all stay. Good.
"Everyone put on body armor then a traffic vest. Joe, you're driving. John, you're the medic. I'm shotgun." I hand a gun to Alice. "Get ammo. You and Epifano are my shooters. Mission: to save lives. Mission: to save lives. We are going to the front gatehouse. We are going to all stick together. I am going to see what we can do without getting killed. Questions?"
Epifano: "Can we shoot back?"
"Yes, if you think you can get hits."
Twenty seconds later we are racing to the Extaco DC, which is a mere fifteen minutes away. I turn to Joe. "Drive it like you stole it. I'll pay your fines and your bail."
Six minutes later and some bruises from seat belts we roll up on the Extaco refinery gate. I am watching closely as we approach down a long cul-de-sac street going only about ninety miles per hour. There is a single police cruiser parked out front of the gate, abandoned with lights running and drivers door and trunk open. A guy in a uniform is crouched behind the gatehouse, using it for cover with his gun in his hand. One of mine.
Epifano and I have discussed this. No guarantee that one of mine is not in it with the bandits.
As we dismount with gear I say "Epifano, Alice, check on him." The three of us draw our handguns. "Joe and John, with me. STAY BEHIND ME."
I walk over to the gatehouse. I shout my name and my company's name. I hear a feeble moan. I crouch and stick my head into the fatal funnel formed by the open gatehouse door. Down by the floor, I'm not interested in being a bullet magnet. Seeing what I see, I holster my handgun.
"John!" I motion him forward. He already has nitrile gloves on as he is a former paramedic, not a shooter. He starts evaluating my other officer, who has been shot at least twice and has bloody speckled lips. His first act is to disarm him. Wounded people with guns, bad idea.
"Joe. You're trained for out here, right?"
"Yes, sir!" Yes he is, I remember now, we had to remove him, he kept reading race car magazines. Here's hoping he remembered something.
"Get in here. Open all the gates on remote."
"What?"
"Open all the gates. We want these guys to get away without shooting anyone else. Let the police kill them once they're not surrounded by tanks full of fuel. If they're still inside, the cops need to get in after them."
"Oh." He goes to the computer and does it. I come up on the cameras, standard Pelco rig. I've got three PTZs where I need them. I pull up the facility on cameras. I grab a radio with clip and mike from the charger rack and I broadcast on the radio. "Anyone on this net, reply! This is Security!" No answer. "Do you see the bad guys? If you can, tell us where they are!"
Two police cars come whipping up the road and see our two vehicles. The officers stop fifty feet short, dismount, go immediately to their trunks and remove M-16 rifles and gear bags.
On camera #5 about three hundred feet away, two guys are fumbling under the hood of a tanker-trailer truck. Both have slung AK-class rifles. A third guy is dragging himself into the passenger side of the cab, with difficulty. His rifle is discarded. I make sure the RECORD light on the master panel is lit.
I walk out to the officers and raise my hands to the air.
"[Name], [Company]. You've got three bad guys. Two have AK rifles. They're behind the second tank over there to the left, trying to hotwire a tanker truck. What do you want us to do?"
The cop now has to make a snap decision. He sees me and three other armed security, plus our abandoned vehicle. Are we part of the solution or part of the problem?
My radio decides it for him. A scared voice blurts out over the air, "They're behind the master fill tank, they've got a truck. Three of them, two have rifles."
The lead cop points at us. "You three with guns, FOLLOW ME." To the other cop, "Stay here and if that truck comes out, light up the engine block and DON'T MISS."
We walk into the tank yard in a clump. Another cop is covered behind a fire hydrant with his rifle. The cop transmits on his net, "Dispatch, this is 71. I am with 56 and three armed guards fifty yards north of the main gate from Kelley Avenue. Three bad guys with rifles. Timeline on SWAT?"
"SWAT has been called out, no word yet on ETA. Staging at Montague and Junction. Have you seen 52?"
"Copy. Negative on 52. Active shooter protocol. Intent to attack and neutralize the threat, time now. Request backup and paramedics to stage."
"Good luck, 71."
"Listen, security guys. We're all going to walk around the corner at the same time. They are going to see us. I am going to tell them to drop their guns. If they don't, we're all going to shoot. Think about your backstops. Don't hit the fuel tanker!"
Alice speaks up.
"Officer, don't worry about the fuel tanker or the tanks. A stray round or two into them isn't going to start a fire. Worry about the pump assembly and pipes and hoses."
"Thanks."
With that, we walk around the corner and violate Rule #1 of armed security work. Never start a gunfight.
I see the guy climbing into the driver's side continue to do so. I see the guy pulling out his erstwhile wounded buddy, who is feebly resisting, drop him and reach around for his rifle.
"POLICE! HANDS UP, NOW!" We are in bullet time. Tunnel vision, hands shaking, have to remember to breathe. If you've been there, you know. If not, understand that the best of us are perhaps 10% to 15% of what we are on a good day. An expert marksman can barely hit the target. An average marksman may fire a few rounds that go nowhere near the target. A poor marksman will freeze, or panic, or simply hide.
A series of pops from Epifano and splotches of red appear on the passenger-side shooter, whose rifle had been in his hands. This is not paintball. That's a kill. He walks sideways and keeps shooting until six rounds are fired, then promptly reloads from his belt.
The truck engine starts. Both police officers line up their rifles and open fire full auto on the truck engine, walking their rounds up into the windshield, which promptly stars and shatters.
The police flank right on the driver's side. Epifano is already flanking left and scanning for other threats. Alice and I are fixated on the passenger side. We are all angled to avoid Polish Firing Squad.
A hand flops out of the truck. Then the third bad guy slides out and hits the ground, bonelessly. I can see from the quantity of spurting blood that he took a hit in the neck, and that the only emergency medical treatment he requires involves the application of a body bag.
Neither Alice nor myself have fired, though we wait with guns out. We wait as sirens build in the distance.
"Don't approach them! Hold what we got!" shouts the police officer. He transmits rapidly into his radio, "77, three bad guys down and dead, just north of the main gate." Dispatch acknowledges and starts calling for 52. No answer. Still no answer.
"83, I need paramedics for a down officer, we're by the fire water tank, I don't know where."
"I know where that is," I hear myself saying to the officer. Then I click the radio, "Joe, John, are you on?"
"This is Joe. John is here. We've got cops and firemen here at the gate."
"Flag down a cop, point out the fire water tank on the map. They're probably on the east side between the fire pump room and the tank. You can see it on Camera #6."
"Got it!"
About a minute later, two police cruisers slowly idle forward with walking police escorts, rifles leveled. They pass us and head directly for the fire water tank. In the back of the second cruiser is a Milpitas fire paramedic wearing black body armor over his turnout gear. It would look silly but not nearly as silly as what we are wearing.
There's lots of dispatch traffic. Lots more police. An ambulance. No one is approaching the dead bodies. Us security people, feeling horribly out of place, guns still out. Police form a perimeter around the tanker truck.
"Security guys, go ahead and holster, we're going to do the approach now." SWAT team members in body armor with shields approach and handcuff all three suspects. None of them move or twitch. Probably at least one of them just bled to death with the wind whistling past the tanks, while we stayed back and did nothing. That is how it works. You don't risk your life to save downed bad guys. You just don't.
Back to the pace of reality. We walk back out to the gate because we have a perimeter to secure. SWAT will sweep the interior. I have Joe move the car and send Alice with a radio to shadow the IC and pass on his directions to us. I run the gate controls and the console. John strips off his gloves and finishes his run form . . . our officer has been transported by paramedics. I call the office and have them send the field account manager to meet our guy at the hospital. They are relieved to hear that any of us are still alive.
Then I call the client security manager, who is not based at this location. He is shocked. He promises to head right down with his CEO and his VP and his legal department and his HR and his crisis management and his . . . I call his backup, just in case he is too shell-shocked to function. Then I call my office and ask for four more armed guards.
We are each interviewed by detectives. We show our IDs and permits. Epifano has to give up his revolver and all the ammo he was carrying for ballstics testing. I discreetly hand him my firearm and ammunition, then put my gunbelt away. The cops are a little surprised but say nothing. I'd much rather have him armed than myself. I've read his resume, you see, and security is definitely his retirement job. Definitely. He doesn't need crisis counseling either. Maybe in a few hours, but not now.
Once the detectives are done with him, I debrief Officer James Smith, whose frantic call to work instead of to emergency services got us here. His partner was standing outside for a smoke, approached a passenger van presumably to ask what they thought they were doing at the truck gate, and when the van side door opened up, something told James to duck out of sight. Then he heard the shots and hid. After they drove through he called work because that was the first number listed on the contact sheet. After talking to me he called 911 and the first officer rolled up and went rushing in. Apparently there were FOUR bad guys. That officer -- callsign 52 -- killed one, wounded another and disabled their van despite being shot in the gut multiple times with an AK.
I am taking notes for our reports. The computer and printer still work, so I print reports out and E-mail and fax to the client's corporate security team, CC'd to my corporate. John gets the clearance from the crime scene team (who are more interested in the fate of the bad guys, since the crimes committed prior to their deaths will be resolved by a Higher Authority) to clean up, then does the bloodborne pathogens thing with the blood trail on the floor of the guard shack.
My backup guards arrive at pretty much the same time as the media. I meet them.
"The media will ask you questions. You know nothing. Give them the office number and apologize that you are on duty and cannot speak to them. The office will forward them to HQ, which will dump them to voicemail. Got it?"
So when the cameras are set up, they see:
A line of armed guards. A parked security vehicle outside the guard shack with our logo prominent. Going to have to replace the tires, but life is like that. Stacked fire and police vehicles along the street, mostly outside our perimeter. Alice and Epifano logging in and out gate traffic, including the emergency services people.
And not a single camera view of the shooting scene. Can't see it from here. Neener neener. Get your ghoul shot somewhere else.
I hear rotor blades. News chopper flying nearby, dipping a bit lower to push the boundary, trying to get an angle on the incident. I get the set of binoculars and read off the tail number, then look up the phone number I need.
"Hello, FAA? Yes, I'd like to file a complaint on a low-flying aircraft . . ."
When Joe begs to take the binoculars and go outside the guard shack for a better look, I let him. The media pilot correctly infers that his license is in grave danger and amends his altitude . . . and attitude . . . accordingly.
Crazy people do crazy things, and escalate even to deadly violence, but order will be restored. Even in a World Without Oil.
I make note of the phone calls and actions I will take starting tomorrow morning.
Disclaimer: this is not real. This is a fictional post based on the World Without Oil universe. No confidential or proprietary information or intelligence was used in the creation of this post. This disclaimer is quite real.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-18 04:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-18 05:26 am (UTC)