Project Griffin

In April, Project Griffin reached its 10- year Anniversary. Don Randall, MBE, its Chairman and Founder says, “We are delighted that Project Griffin has reached this important milestone. It has become an international and potent force throughout the world. Countries and their capitals continue to join the Griffin family in the continuing fight against terrorism, the latest being Paris and Los Angeles.”

In this and future editions we will feature articles about organisations that support and engage with Griffin and how this participation impacts on their daily work.

Project Griffin Awareness Days – The security team journey

A Security Officer’s first priority is to protect the locations they work within and the people visiting the premises. Taking part in Project Griffin Awareness Days and Refresher programme helped a team from CIS Security to improve their skills in identifying and handling potentially dangerous situations.

Through the Ranks

The Security Officer – Hasan Eser

I am now more confident in being able to identify any potential suspicious situations. What I enjoyed most was being taught how to identify a suspect package and evaluate people’s behaviour.

The Security Supervisor – Paul Collier

I strongly encourage all of my officers to attend the Project Griffin Awareness Day. Once you see the images and hear the stories from the presenters, it all becomes a lot clearer. The Awareness Day really brought home how an explosive the size of a matchbox can cause so much devastation.

Now I feel better prepared to act accordingly to ensure the safety of everyone on site. I realise how terrorism issues are ever-present and can be relevant to any location. Whereas I may have overlooked something before, like a lorry being parked overnight, I now take a greater interest in these occurrences and take the appropriate action.

The Security Manager – Justin Morgan

Having the whole team trained to handle potential terrorist situations means I have complete trust in my team to know what they are doing and why. This makes leading during a suspicious situation a lot calmer, as we all know what is going on.

The Griffin Project helps to give us the knowledge to deal with situations. For example, reminding us not to take mobile phones to an area where there is a suspect package. Also being able to judge what could potentially be a suspect package and what is not.

Thanks to Project Griffin, we are able to show professionalism in ourselves as a Security Team. We were able to act quick and efficiently, all the while being very calm and reassuring our clients of their safety which is our first priority.

The online refresher programme is very useful for the team to always stay up to date on terrorist activity. I encourage my team to attend the Refresher at least once a year, if not more.

Into Action

The team put their training into action recently when Hasan received a phone call from one of the site cleaners saying they had found a suspect package. “I immediately went down to see what the cleaner had found. As soon as I saw there was a phone with no backing, wires sticking out and a jelly substance, I knew this could potentially be a detonator to an explosive device. Straight away I initiated our emergency procedures and started to cordon off the area,” says Hasan.

Justin continued the account. “We immediately notified the Estate Management and tenants in order to ensure no members of the public came in to the area, as well as contacting the Police.” “Because of attending the Project Griffin Awareness Day, we all took action quickly and confidently to ensure the complete safety of everyone on site,” adds Paul. “We knew from the size of the device how much of the area to cordon off. No one panicked and we dealt with clients calmly so as not to alarm anyone.”

The Police arrived quickly and confirmed the device was harmless. The phone battery had leaked, the phone owner must have realised this and thrown the phone in the bin. Although the device was not dangerous, it still proved the importance of being aware of possible terrorist situations and having the proper training to deal with them.

Article supplied by CIS Security.