[2014] Eyes Pried Open: Rookie FBI Agent

by Vincent Sellers

  We got back on our feet and continued the run, finally coming to some real military obstacles that the Marines used for training. The obstacles included rope bridges to traverse, wooden barricades to crawl over, barbed wire to crawl under, and pipes to crawl through. In a sense, I felt that I was on an adult-sized playground. Growing up, I had seen plenty of movies that depicted soldiers in training, which had always interested me and looked like fun. Although there were no flutes, bugles, or snare drums playing that day, I still enjoyed tackling these obstacles. This was living a childhood desire to play on the ultimate military playground. Despite being tired, I still managed to enjoy this part of the team-building event because I knew it was only going to last for one afternoon, and I mentally treated the experience as if I were in a fantasy military boot camp.

  Some of my classmates did not fare as well as I did on the obstacle course. A female NAT approached the barbed wire obstacle, where agents were forced to lie on their bellies to crawl underneath the barbed wire. I had just made it through the obstacle, and being one of the first to arrive on foot at the obstacle, I chose a path that was dry and had no water to crawl through. Of four possible paths under the wire, two were mostly submerged, with thick layers of sludge in at the bottom. My classmate began to take one of the paths with water and mud; however, before getting down on her hands and knees to initiate the crawl, she noticed the dry paths. She hesitated and then she quickly shifted over one “lane” in order to avoid the standing cold water and mud. She made it almost halfway through underneath the barbed wire when our instructor began yelling at the top of his lungs for her to turn around. My classmate was puzzled, and did not seem to understand what was happening. She finally backed out of the obstacle and waited for further instructions. To no one's surprise except her own, she was ordered to crawl through the muddiest and sloppiest route. Our instructor had reached his last day of being able to exert his power over us. Clearly he intended to take full advantage of that and would continue to haze the NATs until the last minute of the last day that he could. The NAT made it through the sloppy, muddy route and emerged exhausted, tired, and upset. And the afternoon of fun was just getting started.

  After approximately forty-five minutes of this combination of running and physical exercise, our instructor led us back towards the team-building puzzle area. First, he had the class stop at the pull-up bars, which was a weak spot for me physically. Every muscle in my body was already strained and tired, but I had to force myself to do as many pull-ups as possible keep from getting screamed at. We finally arrived at the stations with the giant puzzles and were given an opportunity to get a quick drink of water. Then for the next fifteen minutes, we were actually able to enjoy puzzle solving and teambuilding. After a brief set of instructions, our teams, which consisted of four to five agents, each tackled a separate puzzle. The puzzles required both intelligence and physical strength. The puzzles seemed impossible at first glance, but with creative thinking and effective teamwork, they could be solved. If an agent failed to solve them, there was no penalty, but if he or she did succeed, then he or she felt a true sense of camaraderie and accomplishment. If I did not have the pressure of angry DT instructors, this would have been an extremely enjoyable activity that I would have considered paying my own money to do. Repeating my technique that I had perfected since arriving at the FBI Academy, I shut the instructors out of my mind and enjoyed the moment.

  The class repeated this vicious cycle three more times. We ran up and down hills, did more knuckle push-ups, and performed more obstacle course activities. As the afternoon wore on, the puzzles became less fun, and the running and exercise portions began to be incredibly painful. Just one hour-long cycle of forty-five minutes of running and exercises followed by fifteen minutes of puzzle-solving would have been a great workout for even the fittest athlete. Four hours of this intense activity was nearly unbearable.

  By the last session, many in the group were experiencing extreme muscle cramping that prevented them from being able to run. I was one of the best runners in our group, but nevertheless, my legs began to cramp the same way that they had at mile twenty of the marathons that I had previously run. Unlike a marathon, where only the leg muscles are completely exhausted, every muscle had reached the limit at which cramping and full shutdown ensues. A marathon is particularly rewarding, partly because it is voluntary, and the runner can quit at any point but keeps pushing to the end. However, the FBI's teambuilding day was not really optional, unless the agent in training wants to lose his or her job. There was a feeling of accomplishment after the teambuilding day, but there was also a feeling that I had been abused. People that have gone through the military are used to this type of treatment. But for me, despite an excellent running background, I did not adapt well to what amounted to physical abuse and hazing.

  When the afternoon finally wrapped up, everyone was quiet. The bus ride back to the dorms was completely silent. Despite successfully completing the day, people were too physically and emotionally drained to want to converse. It had been a tough day for the class, and not one that people would remember fondly.

  The experiences of that day were another way of ensuring that the candidates that emerge from the FBI Academy are dedicated and tough. The question on my mind that day was, “How tough do agents need to be?” I could not help but think that the failure of the FBI that helped allow for the 9-11 tragedy had nothing to do with military-style toughness of FBI agents. The FBI is made of extremely competent, dedicated people, but the culture is a blue-collar military and police mentality. Leadership comes from the ranks, which frequently means that forward-thinking people with significant cultural diversity and business knowledge are scarce and undervalued. The FBI’s slow transformation to fighting terrorism, white collar, and cybercrime is no surprise, considering the mentality of the DT program at the FBI Academy. Again, I recognized the value of learning to defend myself against an assailant, but it was difficult to see the value of week after week of physical abuse that left permanent scars on my body.

  CHAPTER 12

  Academics

  Sitting in a classroom and learning from the FBI instructors was my favorite part of the Academy experience. I enjoyed learning from the mostly fantastic FBI Academy instructors, who were also agents. Their knowledge and experience were incredible. And they were compassionate, could clearly remember their days as new agents, and realized the hell inflicted on NATs during firearms and DT classes. They had a sense of humor and would often show funny videos or tell corny jokes to the class. This part of the Academy was the most college-like and helped make the duration tolerable.

  The opportunity to interact and ask questions of the instructors made me feel like a reporter who was granted with incredible insider’s access to the FBI. I often found myself viewing my surroundings not as a participant, but more as a third party observer. I did get exposure to classified material, although the Academy does not exactly spill the nation’s deepest and darkest secrets to NATs. But I did feel “in the know” and proud that my country had granted me this access.

  A NAT undergoes a variety of classes, each with an examination, with a total of approximately ten exams. On each exam, a NAT must score an 85 or higher. Throughout the time at the Academy, a NAT is allowed only one opportunity to retake an exam. Scoring less than an 85 twice results in an automatic expulsion from the Academy. So once the NAT has used up his or her one chance for a retake, all future exams must be scored at 85 or higher, or the NAT is expelled. Scoring an 85 is not difficult on most of the exams, but there are reams of material that must be memorized. Passing an exam without proper preparation would be virtually impossible. Academics are not taken lightly at the FBI. Being at the FBI Academy is nothing like the training classes I have experienced in the business world, where attendance is practically a guarantee of passing the class, assuming there is an exam in the first place. FBI Academy cla
sses are much more similar to university courses in which if the student does not learn the materials, he or she will not graduate.

  An FBI agent is a federal law enforcement officer. Therefore, knowing how the law works is critical for an FBI agent to have to be effective in the field. A large block of time in legal training is spent on the Constitution and Constitutional amendments. This is important because the Constitution spells out how the legal process works at a high level and is the basis for the operation of our legal system. Much to my surprise, in both classroom training at the FBI and in the field, I found that the FBI is truly conscious of the rights of citizens and works very hard to make sure those rights are not infringed upon. This awareness of the rights of individuals goes back to the quality of the people within the FBI who are there because they want our country to be better, and they are the last group of people who want to see any of our rights eroded. Unfortunately, a dramatically different view of the FBI is held by many, including the American Civil Liberties Union. But both groups care deeply about rights of citizens, and I see no reason why there could not eventually be a working relation and even a partnership between the two organizations. I see both groups as having common interests, issues, and enemies.

  Topics covered during legal instruction included how to write search warrants and arrest warrants, and when it is appropriate to pursue these legal mechanisms. We learned about reasonable doubt, probable cause, and the various levels of certainty required for the varying stages of the criminal legal process. We also learned how to advise people of their Miranda rights, which, of course, I had been exposed to through numerous movies and TV shows. I looked forward to the day when I would actually read someone his or her rights.

  We learned about the differences between state and federal law, including how the different systems work and how the FBI interfaces with the United States attorneys. We were also taught how the FBI works with district attorneys within the states and the legal mechanisms that allow FBI agents to legally participate at the state level. This would be crucial information for me to learn, as I would eventually find myself working with state authorities on a daily basis.

  Considerable time is spent on instruction of the FBI’s deadly force policy. FBI agents are expected always to be armed while on duty, and although the goal during an FBI agent's career is never to use his or her weapon, the reality is that FBI agents are armed, and some will be confronted with situations in which they need to use their weapons. Over fifty FBI agents have lost their lives on the job, mostly in gun battles. And many more agents have been in dangerous situations that required them to use deadly force in order to protect their own lives. The FBI policy is clear: an FBI agent is never allowed to issue a warning shot. When an FBI agent pulls the trigger on his or her gun, the objective is always to eliminate a threat that poses an imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm to the agent or others. Agents are given numerous written scenarios and have to state whether deadly force is authorized, and why FBI policy does or does not allow for deadly force in a given situation.

  This section of legal training, in combination with other aspects of training, brings home the reality that at any time FBI agents can be faced with having to use their guns to kill a person. Unlike a movie or television show with actors who go on living even if killed in a script, the FBI agent’s job is real, and so are the consequences of killing a human being. To people who have not carried a weapon for a living, this may simply sound like a serious responsibility, but nothing more. However, the emotional and psychological impact for many, including me, cannot truly be comprehended without being in the position of an FBI agent, law enforcement officer, or armed member of the military. Many sleepless nights, filled with horrible shooting nightmares, are common to FBI agents. This fact is almost universally ignored by management, but in multiple private conversations with other agents I learned that this is a common occurrence. These unsettling dreams, which happened frequently while I was an agent, still occasionally haunt me.

  The legal training we received was concluded with an event called moot court. Just three or four days before graduating, agents are exposed to a mock courtroom environment, complete with attorneys and a judge. The agents have to testify and are subjected to various tactics that they can expect to see in an actual functioning courtroom. Moot court is taken so seriously that if the NAT lies while on the stand or makes up facts or information while testifying, the agent will be expelled from the FBI Academy and will not graduate. This exact scenario has actually happened, and after enduring a very difficult training process, I cannot fathom how horrible it would have been to make it that far through the process and not have been allowed to become an FBI agent.

  Significant time is devoted to learning interviewing and interrogation techniques. This training was similar to what I had envisioned before arriving at the FBI Academy. Agents are instructed on methods to elicit information from witnesses and subjects, or suspects, of investigations. Most of the techniques are intuitive. For example, if an agent is trying to get information from a witness, he or she wants to put the witness at ease while making sure that he or she asks all the right questions and gets all of the information that the witness knows. Open-ended questions are preferred to make sure witnesses share all of the information and details possible. When interrogating criminals, for example, suspected bank robbers, an agent should look for both verbal and non-verbal cues that the subjects are lying. Ultimately, to get a confession, the agent should be able to identify with the criminals and minimize the criminal activity that the subjects committed. If a suspected bank robber is captured and questioned, the agent might tell the robber that the agent understands that the robber only needed money, that the agent knows how bad the economy is, and that the agent can understand that the robber merely wanted to put food on the table for his or her family. The agent might tell the robber that in the same situation, he or she might have done the same thing. The reality is that most of these criminals simply rob banks because they are lazy and want to get money for drugs or alcohol, but blaring out the unpalatable truth will typically result in tight-lipped subjects.

  I thoroughly enjoyed learning about these techniques and practices, and I agreed with the instructor’s comment that effective use of interviewing techniques and getting information from people is really at the core of an FBI agent's job. An effective interview can be the difference between a successful prosecution and a failed attempt. The ability to successfully converse with a subject could likely be the most effective way of identifying and preventing the next major terrorist attack. Time spent doing knuckle pushups did not seem useful to my job, but learning how to get information from people seemed to be an invaluable investment, and continues to benefit me in all aspects of life.

  The interrogation techniques were frequently tested in a practical environment. NATs practiced their skills by being given a scenario, followed by a face-to-face physical interview with a paid actor or actress. Throughout the interview, students’ actions were monitored and recorded, and NATs were required to write up and report the results of the interviews using interrogations in a standard reporting form called an FD 302. I would go on to write hundreds of 302's during my time in the FBI. The actors and actresses really seemed to enjoy their roles, resulting in an extremely effective hands-on learning environment. These exercises were beneficial in instructing me in how to present myself as an FBI agent, how to get information, and how to accurately document the information. When I became an operational FBI agent, I found myself using my knowledge gained from my interviewing and interrogation classes on a daily basis.

  Another topic at the FBI Academy was forensics, which was another area that I had expected to study in great detail. Unfortunately, this area did not receive as much attention as I would have liked, but I certainly enjoyed the limited classroom time and practical activities for this knowledge area. Other areas of forensic rel
ated instruction including learning how to do surveillance and evidence photography, how to preserve blood evidence, how to conduct a search, how to lift fingerprints from objects, and how to fingerprint subjects. This was truly enjoyable; my interest in this area was largely the reason that I desired to become an FBI agent.

  NATs also have limited coursework in learning about terrorism. In my opinion this instruction was lacking, not due to individual fault of the instructors, but due to time limitations of the established curriculum. With a total investment of just a few hours, we quickly breezed over the various terrorist factions and groups worldwide, and what their motivations are. I realize that much of the FBI’s terrorism training is specific and conducted on the job, but clearly, more emphasis, especially after 9/11, should be placed in this area. Not surprisingly, I feel that the hours spent doing knuckle pushups would have been more useful learning about terrorism. I have a feeling that most American taxpayers who fund the FBI would agree.

  One of the more interesting coursework areas, and another topic that most people associate with the FBI, was instruction in counterintelligence topics. Within the intelligence community, this is known as tradecraft. This subject fuels the imagination of writers of spy and espionage movies. Along with many others who grew up watching James Bond, I fantasized about being a spy or some type of secret agent, and this was the part of my instruction that got me closest to that fantasy. Special spy gadgets along with a treasure trove of true spy stories were shared with the class. With the cold war era gone, there rightfully is not as much emphasis placed on this topic as in the past, but for pure entertainment value I would have been happy to spend more hours learning about the fascinating world of espionage, double agents, and spies.