Day Three - Scenario-Based Training at the Rowley Training Center

Tactical Villages

To respond to the increasing complexity of presidential protection, the Secret Service has incorporated realistic protective scenarios into the agent training curriculum. There are two tactical villages where this type of training takes place. The main village was built to replicate the White House and its surrounding area. This fake city is several blocks long complete with a cafe, tattoo parlor, church, bank, bookstore, hardware store, hotel, embassy, and an 8-story tower building.



In the morning, training will take place in the main tactical village. Paint ball guns and flash bangs will be used to simulate a terrorist attack on the city streets. Participants will face a variety of endangerment scenarios that agents go through in their training. You may be assigned to stand outside a bookstore where a protectee is signing books. Across the street, two masked men jump out of a car and try to rob a bank. You will need to make a split decision: is this a diversion of some sort?



Then out of nowhere, a man starts trying to push his way into the bookstore just as a loud rowdy drunk stumbles out of the bar next door partially blocking a third man wearing a suicide bomber vest and carrying a vial of sarin for good measure. Welcome to the Secret Service.









In the afternoon, participants will train at the Baughman Judgmental Range, which looks much like a Hollywood back lot containing a street lined with buildings about one city-block in length with an overpass at the end. A computer-controlled program will send cutout figures popping up without warning in windows and doorways. These figures will appear for a random amount of time and may be carrying umbrellas, briefcases, or guns.



You need to be very careful here: A woman pushing a baby stroller might just walk into the path of a figure who starts firing an Uzi at the passing presidential motorcade. It will be your responsibility to determine which ones are potential assassins and which are just ordinary citizens. You will be armed with a laser pistol and a computer program will keep track of your score from the 21 test scenarios.







Mock Airport/Hotel Scenario

Participants will wrap up Day Three with an exercise held at the mock Drummond Airport. You will be posted at a rope line with people waiting to greet the President who is arriving on Air Force "Half". An actor playing the President will exit the airplane and walk over to the rope line.



As the President begins to greet the onlookers, an unforeseen security incident known as an AOP or "Attack on Principal" will occur and you will need to evacuate the President immediately to the nearby waiting Presidential Limousine. You then head over to the Knight Tactical Hotel on K Street for your final training scenario.



After that, in celebration of the completion of the first three days of rigorous training, participants will stop by the Wilson Building to enjoy a dip in the spacious 80-foot by 44-foot indoor swimming pool or catch an old episode of Dragnet on our new state-of-the-art satellite TV system.