The Threat

My latest book from the public library is The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump by former assistant director and acting director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe.

I'm not far into it yet, but the book is very interesting. McCabe writes about how he joined the FBI and what it's like at Quantico - the FBI Academy. I didn't realize that they have a whole little pretend town there peopled with actors - Hogan's Alley ...

Hogan's Alley consists of a street with a bank, a post office, a hotel ("The Dogwood Inn"), a laundromat, a barber shop, a pool hall, homes, shops, and more, many of which are named after events in the FBI's past. The town is populated by actors who role play parts appropriate to the training that is in progress; most play innocent bystanders, but some play terrorists, bank robbers, drug dealers, or other criminal roles. One of the buildings really houses a classroom for training agents on site and another building houses a working FBI office used in some simulated scenarios.

Hogan's Alley is used to teach agents investigative techniques, firearms skills, and defensive tactics. Scenarios involve investigations of terrorist activities, planning and making arrests, processing evidence at crime scenes, conducting interviews and searches, using ballistic shields as protection, and clearing areas and buildings so they're safe to enter. Realistic paintball bullets, known as Simunition, which are fired from realistic paintball guns, are used in simulated gun fights with the criminal role players.

I'm at the point in the book where McCabe writes of his first job as an agent, working at the New York field office on Russian organized crime. I'm looking forward to the rest of the book. I've been interested in the FBI ever since The X-Files introduced Special Agent Fox Mulder but I think others will find it worth reading as well.

Here's a book review from NPR: McCabe's 'The Threat' May Be Darkest Vision Of Trump Presidency Yet