Please note!
In the issue «Oops! An error made by personal security» we asked our readers to find the mistakes the protection team made while the client was getting out of the car. So if you have not read that piece, start there and come back to this one afterwards: do not deprive your brain of the pleasure.
It is time to publish the most interesting answers.
The letters are published exactly as they were written.
Oleg writes, mana******@gmail.com:
1. When the BMW appears in front, getting the client out of the vehicle is cancelled. The movement starts forward, blocked on the left by the escort car. Two officers control the threat and, as the car accelerates, switch to running.
2. Tactically they were standing correctly.
Once the point of no return is passed, the rear officer does not close the door. The driver does that. And the officer covers the client tightly from behind.
Experience and competence are obvious here, but:
if you react that way to every car pulling out of a courtyard, the client will never get where he is going, and the whole team will burn out by the fourth hour of that kind of work. And the threat level is clearly not catastrophic enough to run the algorithm Oleg suggests.
On the whole, though, it is more “yes” than “no”.
Ilyukha writes, leaving no contact details at all:
The officer blocked the driver’s view of the left mirror of the client’s car.
The officer — as you put it — blocked not only the driver’s view; he also covered with his own body the client, who was still inside the car. So partly blocking the driver’s view is not that critical.
Another Ilya, writing from ilya***2@***.ru, sent us a whole essay:
1. The officers get out of the escort car strangely. The one from the rear door does not look over his right shoulder, gets out awkwardly with a jump, loses balance and stretches his right arm forward, first looking down and only then towards the client’s car. He is not ready for an attack from the right: a blind zone, and a body unbalanced by the jump with an outstretched arm cannot take a blow. Neither officer ever looked back. At the third second you could cut both of them down.
2. At the seventh second an officer taps the bonnet with his fingers, but there is a tinted black car standing at the crossing. Perhaps it is worth waiting.
3. The officer from the client’s car gets out strangely too: first he opens the door, then lets go of the handle and falls back, and only then starts getting out. His right arm is somewhere behind him and is not ready to defend; it feels as if he is not looking where he is stepping until the last moment. In my view it can be done more efficiently: the hand reaches for the handle, the left one pushes the door, the door starts opening, the right leg goes first, then the body comes out in one movement, the right hand releases the handle and comes up in front of the body, ready to meet a possible strike. The left hand helps to open the door.
Throughout the whole exit the eyes are directed where you are going.
Perhaps the officer at the bonnet should be watching the start of his colleague’s exit from the front door.
4. Once the client is out of the car, he ends up ahead of all the officers, and one of them has not even turned around yet. That is probably too vulnerable a position; the officer should turn faster and move more in sync with the client, and slightly ahead of him.
Ilya, thank you for such a detailed analysis, but the most important thing was not said.
And the finalist — Olga, with a phone number ending in 59, shared her opinion.
Properly speaking, the driver should not switch off the engine until the client is fully out and has reached a safe place, and closing the car doors early, before the client is inside, is not a good idea either. You never know what villains are around =)
— Spot on, Olga!
It makes sense to close the car door only after the client has reached a safe place. The information is passed to the driver by radio and only then does he close the door. Why so? — To save time in case of an emergency evacuation back into the car, the last safe place the client was in.
Oleg, we hope that, being a gentleman, you will not be too offended: the promised surprise has been sent to Olga’s phone.
It is good to know that ladies read us too. By the way, we have programmes especially for you: training for female bodyguards.
And all readers who enjoy a puzzle are invited to solve one more.
P.S.
It is worth noting separately how strongly the BMW brand is associated with “trouble”. Hey, BMW marketing people, is that really the positioning you were after?