Let's hope and pray that this kind of attack does not become a trend on American soil, but on the other hand, let's prepare and train as if it is a certainty.  As more of the high level terrorst targets become "hardened", the target selections will inevitably move to less hardened targets such as movie theaters, shopping malls museums, libraries and cultural facilities.  Awareness is one of the best tools we have. Find opportunities to train your staff on terrorist methods of operation.  Don't focus on detection devices to catch explosives, but rather focus on looking for the behaviors of individuals.  In other words, don't look for the bomb, look for the bomber. 

India cinema blast was "terrorist" attack, police say

AMRITSAR, India (AFP) — Indian police said that an explosion that killed six people and injured 32 in a packed cinema hall in northern India was a "terrorist" bombing.

Hundreds of people -- mainly poor migrant workers -- were crammed into the theatre in the industrial city of Ludhiana in Punjab state to watch Sunday's late-night screening of a new Bollywood comedy. "It was a bomb blast. It is a terror act. We are trying to find out the exact nature of explosives used," said a senior police official on condition of anonymity.

The Home Ministry in New Delhi said it was still "too early" to draw any conclusions, but added the blast "appeared to be a terrorist attack." But another home ministry officer said officials were investigating a possible link between Sikh separatists and Islamic rebels.

"There are several lines of investigation. One angle being probed is whether the blast was triggered by Sikh rebels with the help of Islamic militants," he said, adding the explosives used could have been provided by the latter.  Punjab police chief N.P.S. Aulakh told reporters in Ludhiana that he did not rule out the possibility of a Sikh rebel group, Babbar Khalsa International (BKI), being involved in Sunday's blast.  Former Punjab police chief Kanwar Pal Singh Gill, who is credited with wiping out the militant movement, however pointed a finger at another Sikh group called the Khalistan Zindabad Force (KZF), which is known to have links with Kashmir-based Islamic rebel groups.  Both Sikh rebel groups want an independent Sikh state called Khalistan carved out of India.  The two have been dormant since the defeat of the militant movement in Punjab in the early 1990s, but the BKI was suspected of triggering two blasts in cinema halls in New Delhi in 2005 in which one person was killed and about 60 injured.

According to a security website run by Gill, both groups are "chiefly supported by Pakistan and some non-resident Indian Sikh groups."  Punjab's chief minister, Prakash Singh Badal, ruled out a revival of the Sikh rebel movement.  "People of Punjab have no sympathy with terrorists as they have gone through worst days... there is no chance of a revival of terrorism," he said.

Sunday's blast was the most recent in a series of explosions across India in recent years that have been mostly blamed on Muslim extremists allegedly linked to Pakistan and Bangladesh.

India's 140 million Muslims celebrated Eid al-Fitr on Sunday, marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, and one of the biggest Islamic festivals.  Several of the wounded were fighting for their lives in hospital on Monday. 

The latest blast came after two people were killed and nearly a dozen wounded on Thursday in a bomb blast at one of India's most revered Islamic shrines in the northern state of Rajasthan.  India sounded a nationwide alert after that attack as the country prepares for the main Hindu festival season starting on October 21 with Dussehra, which marks the triumph of good over evil.

Full story here:

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gukRP9Gzk26zVTk7Zclgv1Q6aCKg

A man hopped over a security barrier in the British Museum on Monday and tied surgical masks to the faces of two Chines terra-cotta warriors in a protest against China's pollution problems.

Read full article here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/15/AR2007101500645_pf.html


It's important that we recognize the potential for someone to make a "statement" with our collection material as an unwilling partner.   A good idea is to conduct regular risk assessments, familiarize security and other staff with obvious targets and rehearse responses to potential threats.

Sorry thief returns painting of fallen soldier

Updated Fri. Sep. 7 2007 5:58 PM ET

 CTV.ca News Staff

 

A month after it was stolen, the portrait of a Canadian soldier who died in Afghanistan has been returned to its Ottawa gallery -- along with an apology note. The painting, slightly chipped, arrived at the Dale Smith Gallery on Wednesday, returned by the repentant thief through express post. A one-line, hand-written note was scrawled on the box: "Je m'excuse," French for "I'm sorry."

 

It included a return address, but gallery owner Dale Smith suspects the address is not that of the thief's. "I opened it up and it was like a treasure, seeing it in the bubble wrap in the box. I was a wonderful feeling." She said. "I never thought I'd see it again." The portrait, painted by Ottawa artist Heidi Conrod, was of Sgt. Christos Karigiannis, who was killed in Afghanistan in June. He died along side two of his comrades, after a roadside bomb struck their unarmoured vehicle west of Kandahar. All three soldiers were members of the Edmonton-based 3rd Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry.

 

Conrod painted the portraits of all three fallen soldiers after reading about their deaths in the newspaper.  "As an artist, I do paint a lot of portraits and I'm always looking for subjects that I connect with but I also know that other people will connect with," she said. "My heart went out to their families." Karigiannis' portrait was stolen off the gallery wall in August, just before it was to be picked up by a friend of the Karigiannis family. It was purchased as a gift for the late sergeant's girlfriend. Both the girlfriend and family friend have asked to that they not be named in news reports. The portraits were a popular display at the gallery. They were part of a group show this summer called "Fever." "It was like 'oh nooo,' of all the paintings to be missing, because that one had a story behind it," Smith said.The portrait will now be delivered to Karigiannis' girlfriend.Police are still investigating the theft.

 

 Source:

 http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070907/gallery_theft_070907/20070907/

To many museum and cultural property administrators, the idea of having armed security staff is very disconcerting.   The temptation is to rely on law enforcement response, summoned by a call to a 911 dispatcher.  Unfortunately, the potential damage that can be inflicted by an active shooter is horrendous and this paradigm is already shifting within the campus environment.

It's not a good idea to give a gun to every security guard in every gallery.  The bad guys will always have the element of surprise on their side and the last thing we want is a shoot-out in a crowded gallery. And the effort involved in ongoing training and certifications necessary to maintain an armed force is daunting. Instead, consider contracting one or two active duty law enforcement officers who have the tactical training and skills necessary to form a quick response team capable of responding to a violent situation with a higher level of force.  In most large cities, it can take a long time for law enforcement to respond. Maintaining a small but capable response team on site can be an important element in controlling or ending a violent incident in the incipient stages - well before what would otherwise be possible if we were hunkered down waiting for law enforcement to show up.

See the following article for further evidence of this paradigm shift:

"Universities Rethink Unarmed Police"

USA Today (09/20/07) P. 1A ; Johnson, Kevin

The tragedy at Virginia Tech has prompted renewed debate about the arming of campus police. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 81 percent of public universities had armed police agencies in 1996, the latest year for which figures are available. The department expects to see a slight increase in its upcoming report, due in November. Among schools and states considering changes to their policies is Iowa, where Gov. Chet Culver, a Virginia Tech alumnus, is pushing for a measure to arm officers at the state's three public universities. Education officials in Nevada are set to take up a proposal to allow some college faculty members and staff at eight public colleges to carry guns as part of a special reserve officer corps. On the other hand, Oregon lawmakers recently rejected a proposal to allow college officers to carry guns, leaving serious law enforcement issues up to state and local police. "There are police forces that have the responsibility to make life and safety decisions, and they don't have the full equipment to do it," says Raymond Thrower Jr., president of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators. "It's like giving a firefighter a car and telling him to go put out the fire without the truck and the rest of the equipment."

By day, Lazar Kunstmann is a typically avant-garde Parisian, an urbane, well-spoken video film editor who hangs out in the fashionable Latin Quarter. By night he inhabits a strange and secret world with its base in the tunnels beneath the French capital – the world of the urban explorers.

Mr Kunstmann belongs to les UX, a clandestine network that is on a mission to discover and exploit the city’s neglected underworld. The urban explorers put on film shows in underground galleries, restore medieval crypts and break into monuments after dark to organize plays and readings. In the eyes of their supporters, they are the white knights of modern culture, renovating forgotten buildings and staging artistic events beyond the reach of a stifling civil service.

The authorities view them differently: as the dark side of the City of Light – irresponsible, paranoid subversives whose actions could serve as a model for terrorists. A police unit has been trained to track les UX through the sewers, catacombs and old quarries that are their pathways under Paris. Prosecutors have been instructed to file charges whenever feasible.

Read complete article here..

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2554240.ece

Note: If they can gain access like this, do you think a determined group of terrorists would have any trouble gaining similar access?

Remember back to how you felt on September 12th, a lttle over six years ago now, the morning after our own "Pearl Harbor Day".  You were likely in a state of shock, but all of your senses were on high alert, on guard, and ready to respond.  Unfortunately, many Americans have fallen victim to a false sense of security when they believe that the absence of a succesful attack on our soil means that the threat has diminshed our has passed alogether.

It's important that we continue to invigorate our protection strategies, and we must remind staff that "Security is Everyone's Business".  We know that, in nearly every terrorist attack, the perpetrators visited the location beforehand in order to plan the attack. This planning phase is the most likely time to disrupt a  future attack.  Train your front line staff to notice the behavior of visitors. For examplle, the parking kiosk attendent is in reality an expert on the behavior of parkers. They know what the normal routines are, the normal questions they hear, and the normal incidents that occur. When they see or hear something out of the ordinary, they need to pay attention to that "sixth sense" and pass on their concerns to security mangement.  We know that Law Enforcement can not be everywhere and  that many successful terrorist apprehensions start with a tip to Law Enforcement from the private sector.  In this era, the private and public sectors must be partners.
 
If we ever needed a reminder that many among us "don't get it" - this is it!

MIT Student Arrested For Fake

Bomb At Logan

Police Say Simpson Had Circuit Board, Wiring, and Play-Doh

Read the full story here:
http://wbztv.com/topstories/local_story_264104114.html

“Religion of Peace” or “Religion of Pieces?”

More evidence of the significant impact of Islamic Fanaticism on cultural artifacts in Karachi:

 

KARACHI (AFP) - Karachi is alone among its mega-city peers to have no significant public artworks, victim of decades of religious fanaticism likened to the Taliban destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, but artists here are beginning to turn the tide. 

"What the Taliban have done to the ancient Buddha's statue in Bamiyan a few years ago, fanatics and ruthless government functionaries did to Karachi's statues long ago," says Shahid Rassam, lamenting the dearth of public artworks in Pakistan's biggest city. 

Rassam is one of a handful of local artists working to revive Karachi's public art, which flourished under the British Raj in India and survived for a couple of decades until the early years of military dictator Zia ul-Haq. 

But public art crumbled under Zia, as culture became an early casualty of a regime that nurtured religious fanaticism. 

The rot had set in under Zia's predecessor, Abub Khan, the first in a long line of military rulers, who held power from 1958-1969. 

"The religious extremists launched the first campaign against beautiful statues in Karachi during Ayub Khan's rule when the city was stripped of most of its street artifacts," says former city official Saifur Rehman Grami. 

Art enthusiast Grami says old Karachi was dotted with huge statues, at that time appreciated across religious boundaries. 

The monuments survived sporadically until Zia seized power in a military coup in 1977 as Pakistan reverted to military rule. 

His 11-year tenure encouraged sectarian Islam and religious extremism prospered as he imposed curbs on cultural activities. In the process, he gave extremists the freedom to ruin the remnants of Karachi's glorious statuary, says Rassam.

 "General Zia ul-Haq's period remains a nightmare for art and culture during which Karachi suffered the most, because this city was the cultural hub of Pakistan," Rassam says.

 "Even many years after the creation of Pakistan most of these statues were allowed to be erected at various gardens and public places but since the late 1970s the wave of extremism uprooted all these monuments," Grami says.

 Scores of sculptures depicting British rule are now little more than a folk memory after being uprooted and destroyed.

 Mohammad Ahsan, a resident of Karachi's Old Town, says he witnessed the destruction of his locality's history.

 "Khori Garden was one of the most beautiful parks of old Karachi. There were many statues of those who played a great role in making Karachi the cleanest city in the world, including a huge statue of Queen Victoria.

 "All these monuments were either destroyed or displaced in the 1970s and 80s and the old fountains and water troughs were completely ruined," he says.

 

Read complete article here:

 

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\09\04\story_4-9-2007_pg7_15

“Religion of Peace” or “Religion of Piece(s)”?

 

What does it say about a religion when the adherents can not tolerate the competition of an ancient stone image?  In the following report, we see taleban militants again attacking an important cultural object in an attempt to render it into pieces of rubble.

 

Attack on giant Pakistan Buddha
Suspected pro-Taleban militants have tried to blow up an ancient carving of
Buddha in north-west Pakistan.  The statue, thought to date from the second century BC, sustained only minimal damage in the attack near Manglore in remote Swat district.

The area has seen a rise in attacks on "un-Islamic" targets in recent months.

This is the first such attack in Pakistan and is reminiscent of the Taleban's 2001 destruction of the giant Buddhas at Bamiyan in Afghanistan.

Officials and witnesses in Swat said armed men arrived in the area on Monday
night.

We heard the sound of drilling twice and then early Tuesday morning we
heard two blasts Villager Amir Khan "Militants drilled holes in the rock and filled them with dynamite and blew it up," provincial archaeology department official Aqleem Khan told Reuters
news agency.  "The explosion damaged the upper part of the rock but there was no damage to
the image itself." And eyewitness, Shahid Khan, told the BBC that because of its location on a
steep ridge the statue had been only slightly damaged. It is carved into a 40m (130-foot) high rock.

Local archaeology expert Professor Pervaiz Shaheen told the BBC that the Buddha statue in Swat valley was considered the largest in Asia, after the two Bamiyan Buddhas.

He said it was 2,200 years old. Swat valley is a centre of the ancient Gandhara civilization.

"They constructed similar smaller statues and figurines, dozens of which are still present in the area," Prof Shaheen said.

Swat has seen increased pro-Taleban activity in recent months, with the re-emergence of militant group Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) under new leader, Maulana Fazlullah.

Last week, militants blew up about 60 music, video and cosmetics stalls at a market in the valley after stall owners ignored warnings to close businesses deemed un-Islamic.

The world watched in shock in March 2001 as Afghanistan's then rulers destroyed the 6th-Century Bamiyan Buddhas. The Taleban said they were offensive to Islam.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/6991058.stm

Published: 2007/09/12 14:26:41 GMT

How does a cultural institution with limited financial resources provide adequate security protection?  One idea is to look for synergistic "force multipliers" to augment your security staffing. 

The groundskeeper who spends his/her day maintaining the landscaping is extremely knowledgable about the normal activities that occur on site. Enlist grounds staff to alert you if they see someone acting in an unusual manner, for example, if they see someone taking picures that visitors don't normally take or they notice someone sitting in a car watching deliveries come and go.
 

Volunteers who staff the information desks or assist in wayfinding are also good candidates.  Teach them to report unusual behavior such as visitors who ask questions about the number of security guards, or visitors who wander off of tours, activate emergency exit doors, etc.

We know that most terrorist attacks involve advance planning and "casing" of a target.  By training a cross-section of staff to look for suspicious behaviour, we can increase the probability of discovering or deterring a potential attack in the early planning stages. 

Developing an institutional mindset that "security is everyone's business" will go a long way towards safeguarding your visitors, staff and collections.

What makes cultural properties an attractive target?

Cultural properties embody a combination of attributes that are antithetical to the Islamic jihadi movement.  Museums are often respositories of western and Christian art.  Those that feature artwork from other cultures or religions, such as Buddhist artwork, are viewed as sanctuaries for false idols and these are not tolerated in the strict radical interpretation of Islam.  The world witnessed this desire to destroy other important and historical culture in March 2001 when the Taliban destroyed the 2000 year old Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan. 

Museums are symbols of a culture that is reprehensible to the islamic radical element.  Museums also bring together large crowds of visitors who make an attractive target. Museums are often situated in premier and "landmark" locations and an attack would be highly visible. And many museums are viewed as "soft targets" due to a lack of funding to provide a visible security presence.


So an attack on a cultural site or museum means a strike against western culture, one that maximizes casualties, one that has a fairly high probability of success, and it delivers a blow with significant symbolic value.

For all these reasons we must continue to "harden the target" through the effective implementation of security systems, trained personnel, and effective policies.
 

 

On Saturday August 7, 1999, Buford Furrow made up his mind to attack a Jewish facility. He headed for the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance, but found the visible security to be too daunting. He went to the Skirball Cultural Center where he was again frustrated by the physical security and security guard at the entry. He made another attempt at the nearby University of Judaism, only to be again frustrated at what he felt was a high level of security. His next stop was at the North Valley Jewish Community Center, a small day care facility in the Granada Hills area of Los Angeles with no visible security presence. He had found his mark and began executing his plan of attack.

Furrow was armed with an AR-15 rifle, an Uzi, and several handguns. He walked into the lobby of the North Valley Jewish Community Center carrying the Uzi and opened fire, spraying bullets in a sweeping motion. By the time he ran out the door shortly afterwards, a 68-year-old receptionist, a 16-year-old camp counselor at the day-care and 3 children were wounded. Furrow then hijacked a green Toyota Camry, drove to Chatsworth and spotted Joseph Ileto, a 39 year-old Filipino-American postal employee delivering the daily mail. Furrow got out and asked Ileto to mail a letter, then started firing a Glock 9-mm pistol he had drawn from his pocket. Hit by two shots, Ileto struggled to run away, but Furrow opened fire again, killing him.

Furrow was subsequently apprehended in Las Vegas after he traveled there by taxi. Furrow reportedly stated that his attack was intended as "a wake-up call to America to kill Jews."

Furrow was a white supremacist and an anti-Semite. Although not an Islamic Jihadist, he shared with them a hatred of Jews. He identified cultural properties as a good target for his hatred and cased three separate institutions. This tragic incident demonstrates the importance of “hardening the target” at cultural facilities by utilizing a visible security presence, physical barriers and having well trained personnel. We know that, in nearly every terrorist attack, the aggressor(s) spend a significant amount of time “casing” their prospective target. The best opportunity to we have to deter a potential attack is in this early planning stage. Displaying competent and professional security deterrence is an important step in convincing the aggressors to go elsewhere.

On April 14, 2004, police thwarted an attempted bombing of the Holocaust Museum in Budapest:

Budapest's Jewish Museum Bombing Thwarted
Police arrested the spiritual leader of a small Islamic community in Budapest Tuesday on suspicion that he was trying to bomb the city's Jewish museum, THE JERUSALEM POST reported. President Moshe Katsav is currently on an official visit to Hungary but senior law enforcement officials in the country denied that he was the target of the planned attack. "There is no connection whatsoever between today's official visit by the Israeli president and the police action taken this morning," National Police Commissioner Laszlo Salgo said. Tibor Pal, a senior Interior Ministry official, also said that Katsav's presence in the Hungarian capital "has nothing to do with the police action taken today."
Police identified the suspect as a 42-year-old dentist of "Palestine origin" and said he was the spiritual leader of a small Islamic community in Budapest. He is a naturalized Hungarian citizen.
The suspect, whose name was not released, was charged with being involved in "preparation for a terrorist attack." In connection to the case, two Syrians were charged "with preparations for a crime against property."
The only permanent Jewish museum in the capital is the Holocaust Memorial Center to be inaugurated Thursday by Katsav. The timing of the police sweep thus appeared linked to Katsav's planned visit to the museum.

It's important to review some history to remind ourselves that the threat is real and cultural properties have already been atacked. The following is a synopsis of a deadly attack at the Uffizi Museum in Florence, Italy (source: Frommers.com):  

"Gallerie degli Uffizi (Uffizi Galleries)-- The Uffizi is one of the world's great museums, and the single best introduction to Renaissance painting, with works by Giotto, Masaccio, Paolo Uccello, Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Perugino, Michelangelo, Raphael Sanzio, Titian, Caravaggio, and the list goes on. The museum is deceptively small. What looks like a small stretch of gallery space can easily gobble up half a day -- many rooms suffer the fate of containing nothing but masterpieces.

Rising from the Blast -- On May 27, 1993, a car bomb ripped through the west wing of the Uffizi, seriously damaging it and some 200 works of art and destroying three (thankfully lesser) Renaissance paintings. The bomb killed five people inside, including the museum curator and her family. While everything from a Mafia hit to a government conspiracy was blamed, the motive for the bombing, and the perpetrators, remain unknown to this day.

In December 1998, Italy unveiled what it called the New Uffizi, a $15-million renovation that repaired all damaged rooms, added more than 20,000 square feet of new museum space, and displayed more than 100 works that had never been seen before -- part of a larger project to triple exhibit space. Several branches of the book/gift shop were added to the ticketing areas on the ground floor, and the old outdoor cafe at the end of the galleries, atop the Loggia dei Lanzi with a view of the Palazzo Vecchio's tower, was reopened."

Source: Frommer's http://www.frommers.com/destinations/florence/0051020029.html

Welcome to ArtCopBob!

The purpose of this blog is to focus on the safety and security of museums, libraries, archives, historic homes and other cultural properties.  The evolving nature of the threat in the post-911 environment means that all public and tourist venues must take seriously the responsibility to protect the visitors, staff, and irreplaceable collections entrusted to them.


How much security is too much? How much is not enough? How do we raise the awareness of staff and volunteers at our organizations? What are some creative ways to provide protection without a large budget?   How do we avoid giving in to paranoia - or the opposite - complacency.  What are the forseeable threats? What are the sustainable measures that can be implemented to neutralize these threats?  How do we assure the public that we are a safe venue?

We know that attacks against cultural properties are inevitable.  How do we proactively prepare now to recognize these threats when they are in the incipient stages. What training, tools and policies are important considerations? 

We can significantly improve the safety of our facilities, and the mission of this blog is to be a catalyst for progress on this important front in the war on terror.