What is NYPD Shield? The Shield Program is the New York Police Department’s (NYPD’s) answer to developing new and lasting partnerships in the fight against terrorism. NYPD Shield is a membership-based, private-public partnership liaison program between the NYPD and New York City’s private and public sectors. Its mission is to strengthen the NYPD’s collaboration with private security professionals and to serve as the NYPD’s communications program with these private-sector entities on matters of counterterrorism. Shield’s target membership are the members of the security profession, including chief security officers, security directors and managers, and security officers. Membership is also open to members of law enforcement, the military, and the intelligence communities, as well as crisis management and business continuity professionals. Shield provides several platforms for the private sector to communicate with the police and to access information and resources within the NYPD for addressing emerging threats and evolving conditions within New York City.

The NYPD Shield Program motto is “Countering Terrorism through Information Sharing.” Information is shared via various avenues and platforms, including training seminars, quarterly conferences, the NYPD Shield website, email alerts, intelligence analysis briefs, liaisons, and table-top exercises and live drills. With nearly 20,000 members, representing all 50 U.S. states, 54 countries and more than 7,000 different organizations, NYPD Shield is broken into 22 sectors, allowing for more direct and specific communication among the community of professionals in each sector. The sectors are Business Improvement Districts; Chemical/Petroleum; Cultural; Education; Energy/Utilities; Entertainment; Finance & Banking; Governmental Agencies; Health & Hospitals; Hospitality & Tourism; Law Enforcement; Maritime; Media; Postal/Parcel; Professional Services; Real Estate & Property Management; Religious; Retail & Merchant; Security; Telecommunications/IT; Transportation; and Other.

The ultimate goal of the Shield program is to create additional “eyes and ears” within the security community to help thwart potential terrorist plots and attacks. It serves as a force multiplier, leveraging the large number of security personnel employed throughout the city.

Platforms of Information Sharing

As previously mentioned, the NYPD Shield Program uses myriad approaches and platforms to communicate and share information across the public safety and private security sectors. While the program is focused on counterterrorism, the model can be customized as a crime prevention tool to address any department’s jurisdictional needs.

Training

Training is the bread and butter of the Shield Program with more than 100,000 members and non-members trained. The Shield Program curriculum offers several training opportunities for personnel within the corporate, private security, and management sectors. The training enables face-to-face interaction with the private/public sector—the most effective form of information sharing. This training is provided to NYPD Shield members at no cost; it can be tailored specifically to each organization’s needs and can be conducted at each organization’s respective facilities. All of the Shield team’s police officer and detective trainers are New York State–certified instructors. Any security director or manager member can request training through the Shield website, by calling the office, or by email.

NYPD Shield Courses

Recommendations for Active-Shooter Incidents

Although most of the courses offered by NYPD Shield are geared toward security professionals, the active-shooter course invites all members of any organization, in addition to security personnel, so that the entire organization can be better prepared to respond to an active-shooter situation. This is the most requested course offered by Shield. The NYPD developed this program based on an analysis of past active-shooter incidents and careful review of previous studies, statistics, and historical examples. The course covers the three principle options when faced with an active shooter: avoid, barricade, or confront (literally, the “ABCs” of an active-shooter event) and instructs students on what they should expect when law enforcement responds to a scene. At the conclusion of the course, students have the opportunity to review what was taught by watching a training video that provides a visual recreation of the instructional points taught in the class.

Terrorism Awareness for the Security Professional

This course is intended to provide security personnel with the tools to deter and detect potential terrorist activity. In either a two-hour or four-hour format, instructors and students discuss how to recognize and identify terrorist-related physical and behavioral indicators; collect and process information; make appropriate notifications; and, when necessary, take action during a terrorist attack. Topics covered in the course include an introduction to terrorism, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), indicators of suicide attacks, and vehicle-borne IEDs. It is one thing to describe an explosive device and another to actually show them to the students. Instructors display inert explosives and allow students to visually inspect and feel the IED components—samples include types of pipe bombs, blasting caps, igniters, switches, and different chemical components used to construct explosive devices.

Detecting Hostile Surveillance

Often, terrorists conduct pre-operational surveillance on a target prior to an attack. Detecting Hostile Surveillance is a four-hour course on how security personnel can detect hostile surveillance activity directed at their facilities, employees, or business area. The course helps security personnel learn what to watch for when they are being watched.

The Vehicle-Borne IED Security Checkpoint Operations Course

This four-hour, two-phase course is designed to provide hands-on instruction regarding vehicle-borne explosive recognition to members of the professional security community. This course is intended to instruct security personnel responsible for parking facilities or delivery and loading dock areas at their respective organizations. The first phase of the class instructs students in the techniques and methods of proper vehicle inspection during security checkpoints at high-profile events and critical infrastructure locations. The second phase focuses primarily on the hands-on aspects of vehicle searches. Students learn about the various methods of explosive concealment in different types of vehicles and the proper interviewing techniques of both operators and passengers of suspicious vehicles.

Suspicious Mail & Packages

This course trains members of the security community and mailroom personnel in the skills required to detect and identify suspicious mail and packages. The course discusses how to securely handle mail and packages, how to recognize and identify suspicious items, the appropriate actions in response to discovering a suspicious article, and best practices for mailroom security.

Other Communication and Instructional Activities

Quarterly Conferences

NYPD Shield hosts conferences throughout the year. These events are an effective means to convey relevant terrorism information and current department initiatives to invited security directors, managers, and other law enforcement agency partners. At the conferences, the Shield team builds upon and solidifies relationships with security directors and managers and encourages them to take advantage of Shield resources. Department subject matter experts present on range of topics, including in-depth analyses of well-known attacks, terrorist tradecraft, briefings on large-scale events that impact New York City, NYPD Counterterrorism programs, recommendations to mitigate active-shooter threats, the effects of various explosive devices, cyberterrorism, and assessments of individual terrorist organizations.¹ In addition, the conferences have hosted notable speakers from U.S. government organizations, including Michael Morell, former deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency; Nicholas J. Rasmussen, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center; Edward F. Davis III, former police commissioner of the Boston Police Department; Jeh C. Johnson, former secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; Janet Napolitano, former secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; and James Comey, former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Thirty-nine Shield conferences have been held since July 2005, drawing a total of more than 14,000 attendees.²

E-Mail Alerts

When Shield personnel enroll a new member, the member can request and receive regular email alerts. These alerts provide real-time information regarding terrorism-related events throughout the world. The alerts fall into several categories that include major incidents, police activity, traffic and transit, bank robberies, building evacuations, building emergency drills, weekend events, protest locations throughout the city, and breaking news and terrorism or active shooter incidents from across the United States and the world.

Intelligence Assessments

These non-classified, open-source assessments of terrorist attacks both at home and abroad are posted on the Shield website to provide information for security directors and managers that can guide them in any adjustments that might be necessary in their organizations’ security posture. As described in a previous Police Chief article,

Within hours of a major incident abroad, Shield makes its intelligence products available via its website. Actionable and filling a need for basic information, these briefs enable the private sector to quickly take steps to protect its assets.³

The intelligence assessments are widely redistributed within security industry circles because they are in the form of highly digestible two- to three-page documents that always conclude by examining whether the incident or attack has implications for New York City.

Monthly Liaisons

In New York City, the Shield Program invites security directors and managers to its conferences at police headquarters, and members of the Shield team also attend the meetings of organizations such as the Building Owners and Managers Association; the Real Estate Board of NY; the Hotel Association of NYC; the First Precinct Financial Area Security Council; and the Museum, Library and Cultural Property Protection Committee. Attendance at these meetings provides a good opportunity for Shield team members to engage private sector partners, furnish them with information that can assist their security personnel, and demonstrate that law enforcement can “speak their language.” It also shows that law enforcement can grasp and understand the everyday challenges the security industry faces in a highly professional way.

Tabletop Exercises and Live Drills

An increasing number of organizations are being required to implement and conduct tabletop exercises and live drills that address emergency preparedness and crisis management. NYPD Shield is frequently requested to assist security directors and managers in the implementation of these exercises, and NYPD Shield personnel often attend such exercises and provide guidance on best practices, emergency response, communications, and recovery.

Global Shield Network—Private/Public Partnership Program Expansion

With more than 1 million security officers in the private sector security industry protecting 85 percent of critical infrastructure, intellectual property, and sensitive corporate information in the United States, the NYPD recognized the need to engage and collaborate with these valuable professionals.⁴ Working together with private sector security, the NYPD has been able to substantially increase the eyes and ears in the communities it is sworn to protect. The NYPD and other law enforcement agencies recognize that working together with their business and corporate communities increases their strength and ability to combat traditional crime, while also providing greatly heightened awareness about reporting what is considered unusual events and circumstances. Empowering the private sector to report and act on what they see as unusual or out of the out of the ordinary is the essence of public-private partnerships. Whether an individual is a security professional who partners directly with police and receives training from professional law enforcement officers or a member of the public who contributes to programs like See Something, Say Something to inform local authorities, getting the information to an investigative body is essential. Accordingly, NYPD Shield has developed a plan for coordinated collaboration with other police departments across the United States and the world. The goal of the collaboration is to duplicate the successes of NYPD’s relationship with the private/public sectors and to create a network of private/public partners throughout law enforcement jurisdictions everywhere. The Shield Program offers the NYPD Shield Program template to other law enforcement agencies to guide them in developing a comparable program, without needing to reinvent the wheel. These newly established Shield Programs can then offer assistance to their neighboring law enforcement jurisdictions and to the communities they serve.

Through frequent teleconferences, in-person meetings, train-the-trainer sessions, and NYPD visits to other agencies, other police departments began to implement their own programs one by one. In April 2017, NYPD Police Commissioner James O’Neill announced the official formation of the National Shield Network.⁵

Although many law enforcement agencies concur that implementing a program similar to NYPD Shield would be a productive and successful way to engage with the private/public sector, some have expressed concern about committing their already limited resources and personnel to a new program, posing a significant challenge to their organizations. To put the strain on personnel resources into perspective: the NYPD comprises over 35,000 police officers and is responsible for policing a city with a population of 8.5 million people. The Shield Program’s team consists of nine NYPD members responsible for the day-to-day operation of this in-demand program. The resources or personnel to implement information sharing programs are minimal compared to the high rate of return on such a small investment.

In early 2015, members from the Shield Program traveled to Maryland to present to various law enforcement agencies in the area about the possibilities of implementing a local program. A retired police officer in the audience, who is currently an intelligence analyst for the Ann Arundel County Police Department, saw how the benefits of a program could impact the private/public sector in his community. Within a short time, this single analyst rolled out the Ann Arundel County Guardian Shield Program bi-weekly newsletter. The newsletter has an email distribution of 2,000 private/public sector members and addresses terrorism, along with traditional crime trend information, cyber-attacks, illegal drug trafficking data, and security tips and information.

One analyst, with a distribution of 2,000, is making a substantial impact by informing and preparing a more educated private/public sector. This is what a Shield Program is about.

Conclusion

Expansion of the Shield Program on a global level is proving to be an extraordinary example of interagency collaboration between law enforcement and the private/public security industry. There are several benefits for law enforcement agencies resulting from implementing their own Shield Program and joining the Global Shield Network (GSN). Ultimately, GSN will provide additional layers of security for jurisdictions in disrupting potential terrorist plots through open communication with various police departments and private/public sectors before those threats reach their respective borders. It will also allow agencies to obtain accurate and timely information from a network of Shield partners across law enforcement and, more importantly, from the corporate communities. Establishing a program modeled after NYPD Shield will assist law enforcement agencies in accessing their private/public community’s knowledge of businesses, buildings, neighborhoods, specific fields of expertise, and other important subjects.

Each GSN partner program may differ in the ways it leverages its relationships with private-public sectors. Some programs rely heavily on web-based portals as a conduit for information sharing and reporting of suspicious activities, while others depend on the face-to-face interactions during training sessions or monthly meetings, and yet others rely on the distribution of intelligence assessments or monthly newsletters. But, make no mistake, the commonality among the programs is their active engagement in open communication with a resource that can assist in making their communities safer places to live and work. Colonel David R. Hines, sheriff of Hanover County, Virginia, said of his agency’s Shield Program:

The Shield initiative has truly been embraced by our community as a tool to keep our citizens informed and prepared. This initiative was simply a natural progression in our daily operations in how we protect and interface with our community. Shield has become a vital component in how we prevent crime and stay prepared in an environment where law enforcement tactics and responsibilities are constantly evolving.⁶

Agencies that commit to a Shield Program and join the GSN have the option of signing a memorandum of understanding with the New York City Police Department. New programs also have access to the entire NYPD Shield training curriculum, allowing them to essentially add their agency’s logo to materials and customize them to their jurisdictional needs. GSN partners participate in a quarterly conference call to discuss updates to the various programs and local trends and to share intelligence relevant to the public/private sectors. In September 2018, the first national Shield Network Conference was held in Richmond, Virginia, bringing together representatives from all GSN programs and speakers from around the United States. In November 2019, the second annual GSN Conference was held in Baltimore, Maryland, in what proved to be another excellent display of the impact public/private partnerships can have on the prevention of crime and terrorism.

Notes:

¹ NYPD Shield internal database.

² NYPD Shield internal database.

³ Matthew J. Simeone Jr., “The Power of Public-Private Partnerships P3 Networks in Policing,” Police Chief (May 2006).

⁴ U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Occupational Employment and Wages, May 2018: 33-9032 Security Guards,” March 29, 2019.

⁵ Rocco Parascandola, “Exclusive: NYPD Shield Aided Police Departments Nationwide to Partner with Businesses to Combat Terror,” New York Daily News, April 24, 2017.

⁶ David R. Hines (sheriff, Hanover County, VA), email, August 15, 2018.

Please cite as

Vincent Amadeo, “NYPD Shield and the Global Shield Network: A Template for Law Enforcement Executives,” Police Chief Online, February 26, 2020.