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 LEAPS
Houston
Jeff Moore
LEAPS Chairman
ASSIST State Board Vice President
ASSIST Gulf Coast Region Executive V.P.
State Chairman “Assault Against A Security Officer”
Blue Moon Investigations Security & Protection
LEAPS in Houston has changed the way we are doing business. Hello again to everyone from H-Town. My name is Jeff Moore and I chair the Houston LEAPS program. We were meeting at the HPD South Central Station but have now moved our meetings to the Aramco Building. We decided to merge our LEAPS meetings with our ASSIST meetings. We now meet every month at Aramco. One meeting is a LEAPS meeting and the next meeting will be ASSIST. It is going great so far and we really hope to expand on this idea. The meetings take place on the second Tuesday every other month at the “Aramco Building” at 11:30 a.m. This building is located at 9009 W. Loop South, Houston, TX 77096. Big thanks must go out to my good friend with HPD, Officer Joe Sanchez, for all his help in coordinating the speakers and setting up these bi-monthly meetings. We have had some really great speakers over the last several months that I will tell you about. I hope to see everyone at our next meeting on June 9.
Since the big change in combining the two meetings we have had great success with a rise in our attendance. We feel this is due to people wanting to come and see the exciting guest speakers we have each month. This brings me to the first guest speaker LEAPS has had this year, Special Agent Villafranka with the FBI. Agent Villafranka did a really awesome power point presentation: “Top Ten Priorities” of the FBI. As you probably can guess, terrorism was number one on the list. I was completely amazed to learn that the FBI only has 5,000 thousand agents in the total agency. Somehow that just does not sound like enough to cover the big ol’ USA of ours. It was also very interesting to learn that they are really cracking down on the gangs and organized crime here at home. The number one gang the FBI is after at this time is the MS-13’s. They are very concerned with their violent tactics. Also, organized crime has really on the rise again here in the US. Agent Villafranka told us that one of the biggest problems they were having with organized crime is human trafficking and slavery. Can you believe that after all these years, slavery could even remotely exist here in the U.S.?
The total presentation lasted for almost an hour. The one thing that stood out to me is that Agent Villafranka said how important private security is to our homeland security. He said that we are the front line against a terrorist attack and we play a very vital role. That made all of us feel very good about what we are doing for our profession as security company owners and managers as well as officers.
By meeting bi-monthly, security professionals and law enforcement have a chance to get to know each other off the street. It is interesting to learn how much we all have in common. We must find common ground for all of us to stand on if we want to reach our goals of making our cities and this state a safer place to live. As we all know, we can not do it with out each other. That is why it is so important that we learn to trust and respect each other and learn how to work together as a team in the law enforcement community. I encourage more security company owners and their officers to get more involved with the LEAPS program here in Houston. It is only few hours of your time and is a great way to learn more about all types of security issues in Houston and in our state. We all must take a part in supporting our profession if we want others to do the same.
I hope to see all of you at our next meeting. Don’t forget, June 9 at 11:30 a.m. at the Aramco Building located at 9009 W. Loop South, Houston. If you have any questions about these meetings or our ASSIST meetings here in Houston, please do not hesitate to contact me at
Jeff@pibluemoon.com and I will be happy to answer your questions. Well until next time, take care out there and be safe. “
Remember that it does not work unless we all take part and make it happen.”
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