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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
Hello again to everyone from the Gulf Coast Region and Houston. My name is Jeff Moore and I proudly serve as the chairperson for Houston LEAPS. Our LEAPS program in Houston has been going real well. We meet every other month on the last Thursday at the �South Central HPD Station.� The station is located at 2202 St. Emanuel, Houston, TX 77004. Again, let me give a very big thank you to my good friend at the Houston Police Department, Officer Joe Sanchez for his assistance in coordinating the speakers and setting up the meetings. I hope to see everyone at our next meeting being held on July 31, 10 a.m. to noon.
We have had some great speakers the last several months that I would like to share with you. Our first speaker this quarter was Louise Gibson who is a full time sketch artist with the Houston Police Department. Gibson came to show us how she works with the department sketching photos to help ID suspects. We were amazed at the resemblance of suspects she had painted and the actual photo of the suspect when they were captured. The descriptions were given to her verbally by victims or witnesses of crimes in which the suspects were sometimes spotted for only a few seconds. Gibson has also worked on many big cases such as the �Baby Grace� case. She was able to look at the decomposed body of a little girl and do a descriptive photo to help identify the victim. It is truly amazing to see that she was able to do this. Due to Gibson�s artistic talents and the hard work from HPD investigators, she has helped catch more than 1,100 criminals with her sketches. She stated that if every major city had a full time sketch artist there would be many more criminals apprehended. After her outstanding presentation I agree. All the security officers attending were also given special instructions on what to look for in order to give a good and helpful description to the police and a sketch artist. If you have a sketch artist in your city, I recommend that you invite them to be a guest speak at your next LEAPS meeting, you won�t be sorry.
Our next speaker was Senior Officer Gary Young with the Houston Police Department �Tactical Division�. This division of the Houston Police Department is the �Proactive� division. They are also called the Rapid Response Unit. In the event of an active crisis situation such as a crazed shooter firing at citizens this team would respond and know exactly how to handle the situation. To keep their skills sharp, the division trains on a regular basis. This team trains for the worst case scenarios like the �Beslan Siege.� This particular siege took place in Russia and lasted for over 53 hours. There was a total of 52 terrorist involved in this incident. They took over 1,200 hostages who were mainly women and children. When all was said and done, the death count was 339 victims and 700 others wounded. Officer Young warned us that we must be prepared for this type of situation here. A shooter or terrorist could do this type of crime here if the public is not diligent and aware of what is going on around them. Officer Young gave the security officers at the meeting tips on how to respond to this type of situation and how to call 911 with pertinent information that will help the first responders. This was a very informative meeting and we all learned valuable information from each other.
Our LEAPS meetings every other month give security and law enforcement professionals a chance to interact with each other off the street. It is a very successful way to allow all of us to communicate off the street and learn what each of us do professionally. We must find common ground if we want to achieve our goal of making our great state a safer place to live. As we all know, we can not do it without each other. It is so important that we learn to respect each other and how to work together as a unit. I would like to encourage more company owners and their officers to get involved with the LEAPS program in Houston. It takes only 2 hours of your time and is a great way to learn more about all types of security issues. We must all take part in supporting our profession if we want others to do the same.
I hope to see all of you at our next meeting July 31st, 10:00am at the New South Central HPD Station located at 2202 St. Emanuel, Houston, TX 77004. If you have any questions about our ASSIST meetings here in Houston, please do not hesitate to contact me at
[email protected]. I will be happy to answer your questions. Until next time, take care out there and be safe. Remember, �It does not work unless we all take part and make it happen.�
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