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Byline: Tom Patrick McAuliffe

WE'VE ALL READ THE RECENT HEADLINES ABOUT OUR nation's increasing emphasis on security. While the media has extensively documented the challenges our nation is experiencing, one area that is often overlooked is how America can continue to train the world's best law enforcement professionals.

Since the early days of Elliot Ness and J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI has been putting our most dangerous violent and white collar criminals behind bars. With increased threats of terrorism have come a greater demand for national security. AV solutions and video in particular are becoming commonplace in addressing these needs. For example, the FBI Academy near Washington, D.C., is using the latest in video, multimedia, and satellite technology to train future and current agents and law enforcement officials from around the world. More than 20,000 FBI agents and other students are trained at the facility each year.

"At the academy, whether it be through online or DVD interactive training, video teleconferencing, live television broadcasting, or traditional videotape, we tailor the educational material to fit the mode of distribution. It's all a part of the planning and pre-production process to choose what's going to reach the student and audience most efficiently and effectively," says Larry Walker, unit chief of the Office of Training and Development at the academy.

Located in Quantico, Va., the modern campus of the FBI Academy opened in 1972 at a private site on a U.S. Marine Corps Base. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) also has its training academy at the base. The academy looks almost like any other university, with three dormitories, 25 classrooms, a modern library, and a dining hall. There are also a Forensic Science Research and Training Center and two auditoriums (one of which seats 1,000) with state-of-the-art staging and AV gear. Of course, there are also a gym, track, pool, and special training areas, such as a pursuit/defensive driving road course. For the required intensive firearms training, there's an indoor firing range, eight outdoor firing ranges, four skeet shooting ranges, and a 200-yard rifle range for sharpshooter training.

At the center of all this is the academy's Training Development Unit (TDU). It's a multi-million dollar video and multimedia production facility that rivals any modern television station or post house. It supports the school and its instructors with photographic, audiovisual, and video production services. The unit also operates the FBI Training Network (FBITN) television studio and related production, and satellite and video teleconferencing systems.

The current staff for the unit consists of 22 members, with plans to add up to 45 full-time team members. Among the current staff are three broadcast engineers and three video producer/directors. By the time you read this, three more will have joined this unique team. These professionals produce a wide variety of educational and training videos for the academy's various educational programs, FBI field offices, and other law enforcement agencies.

The annual video operating budget of the TDU, while large by most standards, is only a small piece of the whole puzzle.

"Between $500,000 and $800,000 of the unit's annual operating budget is earmarked for video production. This is only one piece of the unit's entire mission," says Larry Walker. "Our unit also assists instructors in integrating fresh technology for their teaching points. A growing number of instructors are gaining confidence with the technology available to them. More are integrating their video and multimedia materials into the physical and virtual classroom settings. Merging long-standing personal styles with new digital capabilities is a challenge, but most teachers discover it's well worth the effort."

In addition to distance learning television via FBITN, the TDU creates interactive training modules and reference manuals delivered via secure websites or CD-ROMs. As staffing increases, streaming video via the Internet is also planned.

Meet TDU team member Jan Garvin. He has been a TV producer/director with the bureau since 1991, and has produced nearly 300 videos to date. Prior to the FBI, Garvin served 20 years in the U.S. Air Force and worked for the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS). Garvin travels extensively, domestically and abroad, to videotape federal, state, and local FBI events. Examples include documenting a nationwide weapons of mass destruction exercise, and coverage of the 2004 international G8 economic conference and the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Garvin has also worked with the Department of Homeland Security on variou s initiatives, and he has been deployed with the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team.

Garvin is also on the board of directors of the Law Enforcement and Emergency Services Video Association (www.leva.org). LEVA is a group of nearly 700 public safety video professionals involved in forensic video analysis, video production, and crime scene videography. Garvin, like the other video pros of the TDU, is a veteran video creator who uses his varied background to create engaging and innovative educational videos.

So how do these training videos come about? "A project request form is filled out by any FBI entity (that's our client)," Garvin explains. "Once signed off by the respective organization's training officer, the completed form is forwarded to Jane Homeyer, dean of academics, for review.

"If the request fulfills a training mandate, it's approved and sent to the TDU's Unit Chief Larry Walker. He reviews the request and passes it along to Dean Fletcher, who manages the unit's video department, and then assigns the project to a specific producer/director. Once the P/D is briefed, a pre-production meeting is set up with the client. During that meeting, specifics, such as script development, production schedule, clearances, travel, and budget, are discussed.

"I tell the client the most important element in the process is a blessed script. Why? Unless we lay out and get approval of the desired training message and method of delivering it during the pre-production phase, it will evolve into an eternal postproduction nightmare of trying to satisfy everyone's 'creative' input," Garvin says.

On the AV technical side, the academy's arsenal is a who's who of professional video production solutions. For acquisition, team members use DVCAM, MiniDV, and BetaCamSP video formats. They use a variety of cameras, including Sony models DSR-500WS, PD150, BVW-600, TRV950, TRV80, TRV30, and TRV5. Panasonic EZ-1s are also used. Camera support is via Sachtler tripods with portable lighting duties handled by Arri. The team also uses a Jimmy Jib camera support system, and, if needed, Mirror Image teleprompters help the talent get their lines right on the first take.

For most projects, nonlinear editing is handled via four Avid Adrenaline NLE systems. For editing on the run, an Avid luggable NLE and a Panasonic AJ-LT85 laptop video editing system are at the ready. Not all editing is nonlinear, however. The FBITN control room also functions as a linear edit suite with a combination of Sony Digital Beta and BetaCamSP decks, a Sony DVS-9000 digital switcher, and for CG and video graphics, Chyron Infinit and Maxine character generators. Audio tools include a Tascam 24-input audio mixer with Sony ECM-77, Lectrosonics, and Telex microphones.

In classrooms and seminar areas, multimedia is displayed with Philips and NEC LCD projectors, both fixed installation and portable models. The academy also uses Tandberg video teleconferencing systems for education and communications.

Perhaps the best weapon in the FBI Academy's educational toolbox is the previously mentioned FBI Training Network (FBITN). The show was originally a three-hour broadcast called LESTN, the Law Enforcement Satellite Training Network. The FBI's Kansas City, Mo., office partnered with the Kansas City Police Department on the original concept, development, and airing of the programming. The first LESTN broadcast was in 1986 on the topic of advanced hostage negotiations. Members of the Kansas City field office and academy staff assisted in the initiative, and eventually production of the show was re-located to Quantico.

For several years, the FBI outsourced production of the program to a northern Virginia PBS station. Finally, broadcasts were begun from the FBI's own video facility at the academy, and the show was trimmed to two hours and renamed FBITN.

Creating the programs takes a Herculean effort. FBITN has a contract with a local production company to provide crews on show days, which can number up to 12 people. Prior to that, there was only in-house staff to assist and produce the show and local freelancers hired for other positions as budgets would allow.

Once a quarterly broadcast, the program is now moving toward monthly offerings. Some recent FBITN programs include: Law Enforcement and the Media: A Perspective Behind the Camera, Death Investigations, Interviewing Children, Video & Law Enforcement, and Muslim Culture for Law Enforcement. Broadcasts aren't just geared for academy students, but for any law enforcement professional.

"The program transmission is not encrypted, so anyone that's in the satellite footprint can pick up the broadcast," says Garvin. "We have an uplink capability to the C and KU band satellites allowing us to broadcast live over North America. Videotape copies of programs are also available to FBI and other law agencies in the field. FBITN also provides playback of various important videos to the internal audience at the academy via a cable TV network showing feeds of live events such as graduation ceremonies and VIP speeches."

The FBITN recently installed some new satellite equipment. Signal uplink is via an Andrew 3.7m dish transmitting MPEG-2 programming on the KU band. The broadcast signal is also sent to a redundant transmitter.

Before having its own dish, the academy hired an uplink company to bring in a satellite truck and plug into the studio's video signal. For downlinking, FBITN can bring in C and KU band signals and also has dishes picking up the Criminal Justice Training Network and PBS broadcasts.

While the FBI Academy does not provide video production training for students, returning agents who are selected for advanced in-service training at the FBI Academy do go through basic media production training. For this, Garvin takes off his producer/director hat and dons the hat of video professor. "I teach a four-hour Crime Scene Videography block nine times a year to each basic class for the FBI Evidence Response Teams (ERT)," says Garvin.

The bureau's ERTs are a group of highly trained agents who specialize in conducting evidence recovery operations at major crime scenes. These services are in great demand by local, state, and even foreign law enforcement agencies. "Each FBI field office has a Sony TRV900 or 950 MiniDV digital camcorder used for both surveillance and for crime scene documentation, as well as for in-house training at the local field office," Garvin explains.

Teaching the Crime Scene Videography course is very rewarding, Garvin says. "It's really gratifying when a student says afterwards that they can't wait to get back to their field office to use the camera. In my opinion, in the past video has been viewed as a toy by many in senior law enforcement. That mindset is changing dramatically today.

"The value of having high-quality video documentation for presentation in court (if a case gets that far) far outweighs ignoring the technology. At the same time, just handing a camera to someone who previously has only recorded their child's birthday and saying, 'Go videotape that homicide crime scene,' is dangerous and unfair. It's from those tapes that video gets its bad name in our community."

The Evidence Response Team members Garvin teaches may get additional video training if their local office approves it. However, most are left on their own to get a camera from their office and spend time polishing their shooting techniques.

"I've discovered that most are just hesitant to use the camera in an operational setting because they worry they'll screw up," Garvin says. "Equipment familiarization will help overcome that hesitancy. There's too much emphasis on the phobias of using a video camera for forensics. I call it 'phobiarensics', or the fear of using certain forensic techniques. The existence of digital technology did not cause an incident to occur that may have caused embarrassment to a police agency. With proper equipment and training, video technology will keep or get an agency out of trouble much more than creating any problems."

Garvin says that even with the best training efforts, there are still some concepts that academy and ERT students find challenging. "A crime scene video must be shot to tell a logical story to the judge and jury. Frames of reference of where one piece of evidence is to another, the location of one room to the next, etc., are all crucial," he explains.

"I tell my students to weave together a story that will make sense to a jury. I insist that after they shoot a training scenario they play back their tape as soon as possible and then put themselves in the seat of a juror watching it for the first time. Does the video make sense? Does it show what needs to be shown? Does it look professional or homegrown? Homegrown video has shots that are shaky, poorly lit, poorly composed, and frequently features excessive zooming. These do nothing to help document a crime scene and provide a video that can be used as legal evidence."

Video and AV technology is being well received by academy students and by in-the-field viewers alike. "Over the past few years, we've seen a really strong and increasing flow of training programming from the FBI Training Network. The fact that the programs are geared to local, state, and federal agencies shows the FBI is very sincere in its goal to build partnerships and share information," says Inspector Roland Tolosa of the San Francisco Police Department.

Unit Chief Walker says these technology-driven visual teaching methods increase viewers' learning interest. "Students respond favorably when they encounter a class using more than just a book and slides to learn from. But no matter how dazzling a techno-performance a video is, it's really the integrity and professionalism of the instructor that will be remembered most. The technology does not drive what our instructors teach. The curriculum drives the technology we use to make the instruction more effective for the student. That's what it's all about."

"We're utilizing video and distance learning technology to educate law enforcement professionals new and old," Garvin says. "The challenge is to make the video product worthy of the viewers' attention. That means a great deal of thought must go into the project concept to ensure it's palatable.

"Watching a training video should not be a dreaded exercise or a sacrifice of time. It's a balance between unleashed creativity and realistic technical capability to end up with a video of educational value and something worthwhile," Garvin explains. "This means you can't always do what you dream up visually if you don't have the skills or equipment to pull it off. If you don't have a trained staff that has recognized expertise, passion, a team commitment, initiative, and integrity, having all the latest video toys in the world won't help."

Video on the gun range

THE FBI IS USING VIDEO TO IMPROVE FIREARMS TRAINing. Using Olympus Eye-Trek goggles, Trigger Pull Teacher software created by Dvorak Instruments and a monitoring system with standard Sony DV Handycams help firearm instructors improve agents' aim and results in realtime and cost effectively. Students can take a videotape of their shooting performances and analyze their techniques while off the range.

Perhaps the most intriguing part of firearms training is an area known as Hogan's Alley (at left), created in 1987. It's a realistic mockup of a small town that rivals anything on a Hollywood movie set. The area is used to train students, continuing education FBI agents, and guest students from other government agencies, as well as police forces from around the world, in the latest urban crime fighting tactics. Participants are educated about surveillance, arrest procedures, and tactical street survival techniques. An outside vendor provides actors to stand in as criminals and bystanders, creating a realistic environment to test student reactions under the watchful eyes of both supervisory special agent instructors and video cameras. Some training sessions are taped for later analysis. - TP

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To comment on this article, email the Video Systems editorial staff at vsfeedback@primediabusiness.com.

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