The FBI Baltimore Field Office held a community awareness meeting for Washington, D.C., and Baltimore-area Jewish leaders in Rockville on Thursday, in a first for FBI Baltimore.
During the three-hour session, FBI staff members and law enforcement officers shared resources, best practices for situational awareness and active threat response and how community members can work with FBI officials in case of a threat.
The speakers drew from real-world examples of local security threats, such as the Kensington man who sent threatening letters to Jewish institutions and the Capital Jewish Museum shooting in D.C.
Staff from FBI Baltimore contacted JShield, the security division of the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, to request this meeting and address the Jewish community in particular.
“They know that the Jewish community has faced a few specific incidents, but also just a significant increase in threats and antisemitic incidents in the last several years,” Rusty Rosenthal, the Federation’s executive director of regional security, told Washington Jewish Week. “So, they try to maintain that community liaison and explain how they can assist in addressing the problem.”
See Something, Say Something
The message repeatedly reinforced by the various speakers was “See Something, Say Something,” echoing a national campaign that encourages the public to report suspicious activities to law enforcement.
JShield works closely with FBI Baltimore, as their areas of coverage sometimes overlap. FBI Baltimore collaborates with the 55 other FBI field offices in the United States and federal, state and local law enforcement.
The speakers emphasized that without community input, FBI officers sometimes don’t have a record of a person’s suspicious activity until it’s too late.
“If there’s something you’re unsure of, err on the side of caution and report it,” an FBI officer said at the event, referencing the Jan. 1 attack in New Orleans. “There were indicators beforehand and there were people who came out after and said, ‘I wish I had reported this.’ You don’t want something to happen in our communities, … some sort of violence that could have potentially been prevented.”
He added that community members should report to the police even for something “smaller” such as a person loitering for too long outside an institution or suspiciously taking photos of a building, as one “nugget of information” can help law enforcement in a potential investigation.
Even if the person doesn’t turn out to be a bad actor, it’s still helpful for law enforcement to document certain activity.
Mitigating Attacks on Houses of Worship
Daniel Genua, a protective security advisor for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said he works with more than 200 houses of worship in Maryland regarding security.
Genua and other speakers recommended using the “power of hello,” meaning an usher is there to greet anyone who walks through the synagogue’s doors, ask how they’re doing and escort them to a seat. The usher is specifically trained in deescalation techniques should a malicious actor come in: “This is a great starting point,” Genua said.
“A fundamental step is thinking about, ‘When’s the last time your organization conducted a fire drill?’” Genua said. “The importance of a fire drill is it prompts us to think about evacuation.”
He used the Capital Jewish Museum shooting to encourage attendees to think about the security factors present that night.
“Some very logical questions could be asked about the security posture of the facility,” Genua said. “The event took place after hours, right? It’s a very different operation than it is during the typical nine-to-five. What are the different levels of security that we implement during the special events? How do we secure the property when we’re having a very large special event?”
He encouraged attendees to think about every detail, such as the layout of a congregational leader’s office space or whether the doors to the synagogue are locked.
Community leaders can use CISA’s Security Planning Workbook and a self-assessment tool to gauge the quality of an institution’s security measures.
Attendees of the event said they already knew most, if not all, of the information shared about situational awareness.
Larry Jaffe, the head of the security committee at the Silver Spring Jewish Center, said he attended the meeting because security is “such a big issue nowadays.”
“I just wanted to hear the latest and greatest and continue relationships with the FBI, with local police and with JShield,” Jaffe told Washington Jewish Week. “I learned about a new document from CISA that I didn’t know about before, but a lot of these briefings are the same thing over and over.”
He said he plans to return to the Silver Spring Jewish Center community with the message that there aren’t immediate threats targeting the community, but it’s just as important to remain vigilant.
Attendees had the opportunity to ask questions specific to their synagogues or institutions.
“I think anytime the community is talking or thinking about security, it makes us all safer, because a lot of it is really about a security mindset and establishing that culture of security amongst our community,” Rosenthal said. “We always say security is a process, not a product, and it’s an ongoing dialogue.
So anytime there’s an opportunity for the community to talk about security, train on security, hear from law enforcement about security, it’s just beneficial for us all because it maintains awareness.”
