Training Academy 

Driving Skills (TEVOC)

An FBI agent is driving down a lonely stretch of road when suddenly a car comes out of nowhere and slams into the agent’s side door. The agent accelerates, but the other car catches up. Then, the driver of the other car rolls down his window, pulls out a gun, and fires at the agent. Tires squeal…

Yes, it’s really happening—just not in a Hollywood movie or on the streets of America. This scenario is taking place at Quantico, Virginia at our Tactical and Emergency Vehicle Operations Center, or TEVOC. The bullets are actually paint balls, and the car chasing our agent is driven by an FBI instructor.

The program

TEVOC teaches agents, appropriate professional support employees, and Bureau partners, including DEA and other government and military personnel, how to drive safely and effectively—both to track and catch criminals and terrorists and avoid getting harmed by them. The training prepares drivers to handle an array of dangerous situations, from maneuvering out of a common rear-end spinout to more dangerous techniques such as how to ram a threatening vehicle. Our instructors use real-life situation exercises that give drivers only seconds to recognize danger and react accordingly. TEVOC continually works to improve and update its programs—the latest initiative involves off-road situations and techniques.

The complex

It includes a high-speed 1.1-mile oval road track; a precision obstacle course to teach such skills as evasive lane changes, backing up, and emergency breaking; and a skid pan or pad where students learn counter-steering techniques. Originally designed to improve the skills of our surveillance personnel, the TEVOC program was relocated from New York to Quantico in 1994.

Specific training for specific needs

A range of FBI and government personnel sent overseas—including Bureau executives, Legal Attachés, members of protective details, and others in key positions—receive more intensive training at TEVOC. It includes advanced counter-terrorism techniques such as attack recognition and avoidance. In addition, program managers from TEVOC and Law Enforcement Training for Safety and Survival (LETSS) created a new curriculum that integrates survival training and driving techniques for Joint Terrorism Task Forces and specialty Bureau teams.

Safety is paramount

TEVOC instructors constantly remind students of safety measures. The program teaches that there are no accidents, just crashes. It puts full responsibility in the hands of the driver and emphasizes that it is every driver’s duty to be aware of themselves and others while on the road.

Firearms

In 1934—a year after the Kansas City Massacre that left four law enforcement officers dead, including a Bureau agent—Congress gave FBI agents the authority to carry firearms.

In response, the FBI began a robust firearms training program, which has continuously grown and evolved through the years in order to keep pace with technology and best prepare agents and FBI police officers for the increasing dangers and threats they face while carrying out their assignments, domestically and internationally.

The mission of our Firearms Training Unit is to develop and deliver a comprehensive and consistent firearms training curriculum that provides new agent trainees, special agents, and police officers the skills needed to safely and effectively use firearms, if necessary, while performing their duties.  

Our experienced firearms training instructors assigned to the Training Division also offer certification and recertification training to all FBI firearms instructors who provide training to agents in the field and in support of our state and local law enforcement partners.

National Executive Institute 

In August 1975, FBI Director Clarence Kelley tasked the Management Science Unit of the FBI Academy to develop a proposal for a law enforcement executive training program. The resultant proposal was presented to the Major Cities Chiefs (MCC) at their meeting in Denver, Colorado during the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) conference the following month. The MCC overwhelmingly endorsed the proposal, requesting that they be allowed to further analyze and comment upon its scope and format. Kelley assented to their request.

Topical areas selected for the program included: national and international political, economic, and social trends affecting the policing function; ethics and integrity; the effects of affirmative action on hiring and promotional policies; media relations; labor relations; the future structure of police organizations; financing of police operations; training and legal issues; labor relations; and the impact of criminal activity on policing.

In addition to commissioners, chiefs, and sheriffs from many major jurisdictions, two assistant directors of the FBI—Robert E. Gebhardt of the Los Angeles Field Division and J. Wallace LaPrade of the New York Field Division—were extended invitations. FBI Training Division staff assigned to the program to facilitate and develop it also attended all cycles, and so the precedent was established with Session One of the National Executive Institute (NEI) to include Academy staff graduates as well as regular graduates who were selected and invited by virtue of their position and responsibilities as the senior executives of major law enforcement organizations.

Subsequent sessions of the NEI would see it expanded to include international colleagues, sheriffs from the largest general law enforcement service sheriffs’ departments, heads of state police organizations, chiefs of other law enforcement agencies, and our other federal and military partners. As of July 2013, there have been 36 NEI Sessions held by the FBI Academy, Quantico, Virginia. More than 1,200 law enforcement executives have graduated from the program, including approximately 200 FBI personnel.

During most of its 36 years, each session of the NEI has been three one-week cycles, usually held in March, July, and September. In 2013, due to the sequestration, it was successfully modified to two one-week cycles.

Nominations for new participants are solicited annually by the Training Division through our local FBI offices and legal attaché offices (legats). Domestically, these usually include the chief executive officers of full-service law enforcement agencies which are the primary providers of law enforcement services to a population of 250,000 or greater and have a complement of at least 500 sworn law enforcement officers—agencies that are among the 150 largest law enforcement agencies in the United States. U.S. participants from non-MCC agencies are considered as space permits. Nominees from Legats are chosen law enforcement executives who meet the NEI selection criteria and who will contribute to NEI concerning their country’s contemporary law enforcement challenges. FBI field division heads are nominated and approved by FBI Headquarters to increase and enhance liaison with their local law enforcement partners. Our federal partner nominees are recommended directly by the respective federal agency.

The selected FBI executives, international, and federal/state/city/county nominees are reviewed and forwarded to the Director’s Office for final approval. Generally, the final selection announcement and participants are notified by their nominating FBI office between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The NEI has been variously described as the “Director’s own program” and as the crown jewel of the FBI’s executive training initiatives. It has led to the design and implementation of the Bureau’s Law Enforcement Executive Development Seminar (LEEDS) program and the Leadership in Counterterrorism Program, or LinCT.

Professional Staff 

Education and training are part of every FBI employee’s career development, and employees have access to a variety of in-house and external training and educational opportunities provided by professional organizations, private sector vendors, academic institutions, and other government agencies.

All new employees attend a basic orientation course called “ONE”—or Onboarding New Employees—in Quantico, Virginia. And a large variety of classroom, on-the-job, and web-based training opportunities are available to professional staff members after their hiring. As part of the Bureau’s Continuing Education Program, all employees are required to take a predetermined amount of training each year in order to keep their skills at their highest levels.

*The FBI provides the following training opportunities for its professional staff:

• Annual training development plans drafted by the employee and his/her manager;
• University Education Program, providing employees the opportunity to obtain an academic degree and/or certification;
• Government Employees’ Training Act, used to fund external employee training;
• Student Loan Repayment Plan, for federally-backed loans;
• Virtual Academy, an online catalog of self-paced courses in a variety of topics;
• On-the-job training; and
• Executive Development Institute, for future executives to develop and enhance their leadership and management skills.
  

*Many of these opportunities are dependent on funding and must be relevant to the mission of the FBI.