Overview
#042 – Simon Osamoh is a seasoned security practitioner with over 20 years of experience in counterterrorism, risk management, and security consulting. His career highlights include leading counter terrorism at the Mall of America. He’s also spent 14 years as a detective in England, collaborating with intelligence services on the 2006 liquid bomb terrorism plot, which reshaped global aviation security. As a former Director of Risk and Compliance at top financial institutions, including Wells Fargo and US Bank, he has overseen critical risk programs in areas such as business continuity, crisis management, and regulatory compliance.
In our discussion today, we discussed Simon’s work as the founder of Kingswood Security Consulting, where he helps clients develop programs to prevent workplace violence, lends his expertise as an expert witness in legal cases involving targeted violence and retail crimes, and more. Please check out the show notes for links to Simon’s several best-selling books, his podcast, and his website to connect.
Connect with Simon:
His best-selling books: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=simon+osamoh&crid=22PU32V3QXT9L&sprefix=simon+osamoh%2Caps%2C151&ref=nb_sb_noss_1
Personal Website: https://www.simonosamoh.com
Consulting Work: https://www.kingswoodsc.com/simon-osamoh
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@SimonOsamoh
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonosamoh
Highlights from This Episode
- Most orgs don’t have a [threat management] program. They have a policy with no implementation.
- Reporting must match user behavior. Give multiple channels that fit your demographics.
- Run-Hide-Fight is a menu, not a sequence. Choose based on the situation you are in.
- In the first minutes, you are the responder. Plan for action before help arrives.
- Expert witness work hinges on duty of care, industry norms, and consistency of practice.
- Your public posts can be used against you. Keep views consistent and fact-based.
- For aspiring consultants: stop waiting on letters after your name. Do great work, earn references, and build relationships.
Memorable Quotes:
- “The program is only as good as the action you take.”
- “Run-Hide-Fight is a menu, not an order.”
- “When seconds count, the police are minutes away.”
- “Comparison is the thief of joy. Build your own path.”
- “Clients care about outcomes, not acronyms.”
RESOURCES MENTIONED
- The Violence Project (mass-shooting database and research)
- FEMA/DHS and FBI active shooter materials
- Simon’s book: How to Survive a Mass Shooting
- Kingswood Security Consulting (Kingswood SC)
- Stop the Killing podcast episode referenced in the WhatsApp reporting story
Use CONTROL + F to search the transcript below if you want to learn more!
Transcript from this episode
*Note: this transcript was generated using automated software, and may not be a perfect transcription. But I hope you find it useful.
Travis: Simon, welcome to the podcast. I've been looking forward to this conversation for a while now. I know I stumbled across your name probably five or so years ago when I was doing some work in Minneapolis. Some of my team members had mentioned your name and I thought I really have to check out this guy's podcast.
I need to see some of his writings online. So that really sparked my interest initially. And then also, I know you do so much work around houses of worship, around retail, some of these other areas. And I've seen a lot of these topics come up in the news over the last year. So it really had me thinking more about house of worship, security, and these other areas. So Simon, I'm really excited to talk with you today and I appreciate you for joining me.
Simon: What you have to say is honor and privilege. And like I said, offline, I spend a lot of time in the car driving to many different states around this fine country and your podcast is in my download list. So a long time listener, I will call myself. So thank you for allowing me to come and share your platform.
Travis: Thank you. Of course. So Simon, I think one good place to start. Could you share a bit about how you got started in security in the first place? What was it that drew you? Yes.
Simon: So for most of your listeners, I realize that I'm not native to the US. So I have an accent. So I'm really from a town west of London called Redding.
It's around 40 miles west of London. And I really drifted into law enforcement, but I think there was a bit of a sort of a purpose behind it. But very different than here in the US Travis, I joined law enforcement at 19. I always had an interest in the police. And I was actually working in a residential care home with adults with learning disabilities, and I sort of Down syndrome. And we're in a community house and around two doors away, one of the neighbors was a high ranking seven police officer.
And he stopped me one time. I was like a 18 year old kid. And he said, you know, what do you want to do with your life? And I said, well, actually, I've applied for the police. And he said, well, that's interesting because I'm actually in the police. And then he said, I'll check where your application is. And I don't know what he did Travis behind the scenes, but about three days later, had a letter from the police saying your application has been accepted. Come in and go through testing. And I went through a testing and all the interviews. And I found myself as a 19 year old as a police officer in England. Really had a lot of fun being a uniform police officer didn't spend too much time in uniform.
But there was a sort of a turning point really my life, very early on in the police where I knew that I was a protector that there was a woman that was involved in domestic violence. And I would go was I think it's just 20. So 2001 98.
So I was like 21, maybe now by this time. You know, and I would go around there and she was a husband was Iranian. She was also Iranian and she'd got a job in England. And I think what had happened is he'd lost a lot of the power and control but he was used to in Iran. And he came to a country where women had rights and they could do the things that they wanted to do. And I think it caused a lot of mental health and friction in their relationship.
And I'm not too sure if it was abusive before, but the relationship became abusive and I've go there for domestic violence and I would arrest him or take her away. You know, and I'm like a 21 year old kid at this point. I can remember I left one day and seven next time I come here, he's going to have killed her. And I got a call one day to the to the house and basically he had attacked his wife with a meat cleaver, which is a bit like sort of big butcher's knife. And she died in my arms.
And I realized when a couple of things Travis, I realized the depth of responsibility that came with it. She was I was the last person that that woman, so I get emotional talking about it. I was the last person that she saw.
And I felt that I'd felt that woman that I should have done more. I know now sorry, Travis. I know now wasn't necessarily my fault.
It was a broken system that allowed these things these things to happen. And what I realized through that really was that I was a natural protector. And if I wasn't too sure what my purpose was before, it was very clear that my purpose was in serving and protecting other people. And from there, I became a very young detective.
I think I was 22 or 23. I became a young detective, then moved into organized crime and have the honor in 2006 to work with MI5 and liquid bomb terrorism plot, which obviously changed aviation security worldwide, limiting liquids on planes, doing a lot of covert tactics in back case. And then I immigrated here in 2011 to head counter terrorism at Northern America. So I had sort of quite a quite a journey. I arrived here on the 17th of October. In 2011, and by the 3rd of December, I was head of counter terrorism at one of the country's largest open public venues, as you know, that has 42 million visitors a year, 7 million square feet.
And it was really here that I got involved in consulting and risk management that I was actually talking to the sports commons at Disney. It used to be called NCS4. I think it's now NCS5 when Major League Soccer joined.
It's all the directors and leaders of all the major sporting teams here in the US. And I got off the stage from presenting my phone beats and it was a police department. And they said, we know you're a Christian.
We know you're a security expert. We have a church that we feel that you can help. And I said, Travis, what many people still say to this day going on to 12 years later, you know, why does the church need my help?
And I went there one Wednesday. I really remember two things that the first was there was a real need for biblical based, secure risk management. So for any Christians or persons of faith on this Listen podcast, I recognize there was a need to look at security through the lens of scripture, particularly in the house of worship. And then second, the law really spoke to me and said, Simon, I gave you all the skills and attributes to protect my churches. And 12 years later, that is what I'm best known for.
I've written two Amazon best selling books on the subject, no travel or country. And we have nonprofit clients in 16 states from the National Piscoc Church in New York, down to a small church that has 60 to 70 people. And we do a lot of corporate work, a lot of big distribution centers, some of these that make springs, make planes, all sorts of stuff. But you know, we're always strong to the nonprofit and house of worship.
We really understand what it means to protect an open public venue. And so that's really how my journey began, Travis. But like I said, a lot of it, my mindset really shifted when this poor woman that was murdered by her husband died in my arms. And I realized that I am a natural protector. And I think you see that insecurity a lot. You certainly don't do security for the money because it's the industry where everyone says, we don't have the money, you know, we can't afford to do this. So you certainly don't do security for the money. I think you do it because of those ones that see it as collaboration at the top competition and bottom.
I think we do it because we're generally trying to make the place and the society better and on the books I've written, I've been around how do we make the world a better and safer place? Yeah, so there's a lot in there for you to unpack, Travis, for sure.
Travis: Yeah, and I think a lot of us in security, we all have kind of similar stories that brought us to security. Of course, yours is very emotional. And that's a very extreme circumstance because domestic violence cases, those are some of the most dangerous incidents that police or anyone can report to you. And then I think for others, like many of my peers, maybe they haven't worked in law enforcement. But I think for many of us, it was the 9-11 attacks where we saw that on TV when we were still in elementary school. But that was kind of one of one of the things that drew us to security in the first place. So I think a lot of listeners will be able to relate to that.
Simon: Yeah, and you see in your, you know, you see in the past, like the big sort of buzzword right now is behavior-based threat assessment, right? Everyone's a threat assessment expert and they've got doctors and stuff in it. But you know, I saw, maybe, a threat assessment 24 years ago, but the system wasn't set up to help. So even in 2001, when this poor lady lost her life, I would raise the alarm, you know, this is what's going to happen. I would submit the information, you know, there's been another escalation of violence.
The husband has said this, this is what the victims told me. But the program is only as good as the action that you take. So we see a lot of talk on LinkedIn. We see a lot of people talk about the process of threat assessment, where I often say is that is good, but what is your action? What is your mitigation strategy? And that's where we often fail.
And like I said, 24 years ago, the system failed this woman. And I still see it now because we get so caught up in the gloss of, well, let's have a multidisciplinary team and we've got mental health practitioners, we've got law enforcement, we've got someone who's got this doctor, that's good. But the process is only as good as the outcome, our strategies, I think in behavior-based threat assessment, that's where as an industry I see the biggest gap is we do a lot of talking, but how do we create these mitigation strategies and what's our management plan to work through? I think that's where a lot of organizations still need to do a lot of deep diving and a lot more work.
Travis: Yeah, that's a good point about the more practical aspects about what you're going to implement, how you're going to address concerns when they raise. Because I know, for me, I have, there's one organization that, there's a professional organization on this topic, they have a certification, I've read probably 80% of the books on their reading list, but a lot of it is it's academic, it's some of it's theoretical or it's anecdotal, but I think it's less so focused on mitigation strategies, specifically what those are going to look like in the real world once we start to implement, what the challenges are going to be, what criteria we want to look for for implementing this strategy versus that strategy. So I think that's a really good point on the practical side.
Simon: Yeah, and you're right Travis, because the hardest thing right is Simon's got mental health, he's on the pathway, his behavior's become erratic. Is he schizophrenic or is he having problems with medication or what is causing that?
The hard stuff is sitting down and having those conversations, right, surrounding who's going to sit in the room with Simon and ask him, are you struggling with your mental health right now? Is there any medication that you need to take? What are the things that we can do?
Or if it's in a house of worship, ride work, diving in and saying, you know, Maggie, I know you're going through a divorce, the behavior of violence seems to be escalating, how often is your husband attacking you? They're the tough things, right? But that's what you need to do. You can't really do a full assessment without doing that deep dive to work out what is that strategy. And I think whether it's a corporation, people can be reluctant to ask, or there's a non-profit, people can be reluctant to ask.
But you're absolutely right. It's that line past, once we've got a multidisciplinary team, and we're discussing that my question in the current state is, well, what's the strategy? How are we going to move to action?
Who's having those conversations? And how are we making sure we have the right plan in place? I'm not saying my fellow peers are wrong. I'm just saying I think there's more work we can do in relation to the strategies. Like I said, I saw that 24 years ago, when I kept escalating, kept escalating, kept escalating, and no one was actually following through on a risk management plan. And perhaps ultimately, it costs up woman, woman her life, which is why I feel the guilt of, could I have done more?
And I think I did everything, but the system failed her. And I think we see that in some of these mass shootings, right, where we see the pathway to violence afterwards. There's always these indicators that have been missed. There's the mental health that has been missed, or there's the leakage that's been ignored. I often say, Travis, the same system that is designed to protect me and you is also designed to protect these individuals. And I think one thing that we look back at these mass shootings and we see the profile of these individuals, I think a lot of us, if we're very sort of level-heavied, we can say that the system failed them as well. So yeah, helpful.
Travis: Right. And I think that could be a good place to start with some of the other behavioral threat assessment items that I was considering talking about. Simon, for a client that comes to you, someone who maybe they had an incident in their organization and now they finally realized, now they finally feel compelled that they need to develop a, some kind of workplace violence type program. How do you help them think through the process of getting started in the first place?
Simon: What often happens is that an organization will come and they'll say, Kingswood Security Consultants are my risk management company. People will come to us and say, Simon, can Kingswood build us a workplace violence prevention policy? And I'll say, absolutely. That's what we can do.
Be more than willing to help you. During the period of discovery, we say, well, can you send all the programmatic functions of what you actually do? And then what we actually then realize is, well, they don't really have a program.
They just have a collection of ideas or they have a policy which isn't being implemented. So that's often what I see is very common when someone's at the beginning stages. And then the next thing around the workplace violence prevention is really looking at all those different touch points with an employee because predominantly what we're talking about employees is sort of generally 70%.
And then 30% could be a contractor, visitor, guest or someone that's coming to your organization. It's then just simply looking at the mechanisms to be able to make that decision. So the final act is how do we decide if someone is on a pathway to violence?
How do we help someone? How do we identify behaviors that are outside of baselines? We can have those conversations. So when it's simple initial thing such as, well, do you have the means where someone can escalate their concerns? Be this anonymous tip line, be this a form on a sort of a company intranets or whatever it might be, or knocking on the door of their manager and saying, Simon looks like he's in a dark place right now. Can I share some concerns with you? And then around that report, it's also making sure that you have the right reporting mechanism for that organization. As an example, I'm a dad of two boys 12 and 14.
There's lots of companies out there that sell these really great like instant reporting systems where you've got to call a hotline. Travis, my son is 14. He thinks Facebook is for old people.
It's like, dad, you're old if you use it. My son is never going to pick up a phone and call a number and say, by the way, it looks like this person, but what will my son do? He'll send a text message. He'll go to WhatsApp and he'll send a WhatsApp message. He'll go to Instagram. So the first thing is saying, how are people going to escalate their concerns to us?
And then the key that I find in the industry, and I've got many friends that sell some really good programs, but I say it a jovial way, but it's also a real way because I use my family's ellipmus test, is what you have, how people are going to report. If you're a superintendent or a principal of a middle school or high school, highly unlikely a form is going to be completed by a child. Highly unlikely they're going to pick up the phone and call a number.
They may not even text a number, but they will go to WhatsApp or Telegram or Southern Means and share that information. So I think the first thing, Travis, is really considering how is that information going to come into us and then what is the best platform? And again, I'm not talking bad about some of these management programs out there for incident reporting. I'm just saying that you need to look at who your demographic is and how are they going to report.
My dear mother in England, 83, she will pick up the phone and call, but my 14 year old somewhat won't. So I mean, that's the first thing is around the escalation. And then the second thing that a lot of people don't really have, and we help organizations build a risk matrix around this, is, well, what is your definition of a high-risk termination? What is your definition when the threat assessment needs to meet?
So what often is missing, Travis, is a framework around, well, when do we bring in our threat assessment team? Is it when you're in a school and a parent rings and says, Simon Schizophrenic, he's off his medication, just letting you know? Does that escalate to the threat assessment team or around workplace violence? Or does it come, does it get to HR when someone says, my son is Schizophrenic, he's off his medication, he's been coming very violent, I'm concerned about him coming to school.
By the way, Mike dropped over to you, my son's now on the bus coming to school. So it's also been creating risk matrix or ways to determine what is a high-risk termination, when does an incident need to escalate to human resources, and what does that look like? So this is all part, I'm using different context here as I'm explaining this, but this is all about identifying the weights of reports and then building what is that escalation, when does that team meet? Because that's another gap I see in a lot of programs is there's no clarity as to when a threat assessment team or human resources may need to be alerted to workplace violence prevention because they don't have a classification and it could be where Travis says this qualifies and Simon says, well, I don't think it is in my 25 years experience risk management, I don't think we need to call the threat assessment team and then there's someone in between saying, well, I'm not too sure what we really do with this. So I think that's the best place to get started is how are people in your organization going to inform, escalate, and then how are you going to determine what you then do without information to make sure that there's a consistent path every time because obviously that's where if things do go wrong, that's where someone's going to look at a process and say, well, how do we get here? What do we do with the information that was shared? And that seems to be a missing piece, Travis, when I talk with a lot of organizations, there's no classification of what is in or what is out. And by the way, you and I know in the risk management world, it's very simple to create a more of a risk matrix where you can go down and give it a risk score and say, this behavior qualifies for our threat assessment team or a risk committee to discuss these misactions.
Travis: Thank you, Simon. That's really helpful and just kind of conceptualizing how a consultant like yourself is going to be able to help those organizations. And one of the first things that stands out to me when you talk about implementing technology to collect information for potential threats, I think as consultants, we have to think just like you're doing, we have to think about the perspective of the end user. How are they actually going to interact with the technology? Does it make sense in whatever way the vendor is proposing they use it?
Is that actually how a teacher, a manager, a parent, a student, a member of the congregation, is that actually how they're going to interact with it day to day? Because I think that's where a lot of technology implementations fall short. It's that the organization might not think they see the shiny technology, they want to do something quickly, they go and they make the spend, but then they haven't thought through what is implementation actually going to look like day to day? Have they tested it in that environment with that specific population? So I think you make a really good point there about thinking, how is the end user actually going to use this and are they going to use it? Are there going to be barriers in the way? So I think that's a huge point that is sometimes overlooked.
Simon: Yeah, and it could be. You might need multiple systems. So if we go back to the woman domestic violence, once they have a system and failed her, perhaps there's different systems that need to be in place. Obviously, we know and I'm sure you've done conversations on this before about layers of security, circles of security. We also need that about our reporting. We might need different layers because as you mentioned, each different audience might have a different way. So that can be a realisation for a lot of people is I don't just need one system. I might need four systems just to capture that one time when a young child is going to report information or just to capture that one child when a teacher doesn't want to come forward. But they want to share that information anonymously.
Yes, it could be multiple ways. And again, it goes alongside the multi disciplinary approach to baby based threat assessment. And I would say I would say that's also the case, a multi disciplinary approach or multi strategy approach for how people are going to report information.
Otherwise, you're going to capture caption information. But it's actually a case in Florida, I forget the name, but there was a girl that overheard someone in her, I don't know, she was in her class when her school year was talking about doing a school shooting. She reported she started a WhatsApp text message where she shared it with her friends. And then eventually it got to the students. So eventually got to the teaching staff, they found out. And then they interviewed the guy, did the threat assessment.
And there was no concerns. It was just one of these young kids just being dumb, saying things that they shouldn't have said. But then what they then did was they went back to the girl and said, you didn't follow the school protocol for a threat assessment. So they suspended the girl because she shared it on WhatsApp. And I think it was Catherine Swipe from Stop the Killing podcast that shared about this. It was a couple of years ago. And it was like, wow, you know, you, a girl did something, which is what you'd want to do where she escalated to a group of friends, creating this WhatsApp group.
And just because it doesn't conform to what you're, you being in your 45, 50th year, 55 year, however old you are, because it doesn't conform to what you want. But it suspended the girl, saying that she didn't escalate the threat in the right way, as opposed to what me, you just said, as opposed to saying, how does a 12 year old girl share information? She shares it via WhatsApp.
So let's create a WhatsApp group and let's not punish someone. So I forget the every episode, but it was Catherine Swipe who's a former FBI. She always used to oversee the app to shoot a program. She has a podcast called Stop the Killing.
There's an episode on there where she broke it all down. So yeah, so we, we've got a lot of work to do, I think, and that's not just in scores. I think in general, we have a lot of work to do, traverse around, making sure there's multiple ways for someone to escalate. Because if they don't escalate, we can't assess, we can't investigate and respond, right? So yeah, we've got to make sure we're capturing that well.
Travis: That's a really interesting scenario. And it's almost, of course, it's the opposite of what you want to do. You want to encourage people who are going to bring that type of information forward so that we could take proactive action so that we could hopefully prevent incidents like that. And that's just the exact opposite. I mean, the irony might be that there was a psychologist involved in this conversation, but they're, what's it called, negative conditioning? You're conditioning, you're punishing them for doing the thing that you want them to do?
Simon: That's, yeah, that's it. And it was simply because the organization had it, look, the organization was trying to put this kid into a box. You know, the box is on our, you go to our website, we have an anonymous reporting form, or you knock on the door of your school counselor and say, this is what I've just heard Simon do. Second one is challenging for a kid, right? And the first one is putting him inside a box, but this is what we want you to do. So when this child stepped outside that and did it from WhatsApp, the school district couldn't really handle it. Because, like, well, this is, this is outside our box.
And this isn't what we do. So she didn't follow school process. So it's sort of a girl, a girl was, was suspended. And then you have the people like Custford are saying, what do you expect a 12 year old girl to do? But they weren't asking the right, right questions. Yeah.
Travis: Yeah. And I think one way to think about it too, it's almost like you have layers of layers of collection mechanisms to gather that information to it's not just we think about layers of security, but we could also have layers of technology or process for reporting that information so that we could get as much as we can based on whatever the preferences of that population might be, because my mom's going to report different information than any of my friends who are Gen Z or people that are students. So I think that's a good way to think about it. Yeah. And then also, so that kind of leads to the topic of active shooter or incidents when they actually do take place.
And Simon, for people out, I know you do training on active shooter and in these other areas, for people out there who are less familiar with workplace violence and specifically active shooter training policies protocol, what would be a good place to get started as far as resources go or where someone could learn more about this area if they're approaching the conversation as someone who's completely new?
Simon: Yeah. So like any good author, Travis, an author is never far from his books. So I would definitely say to listeners, I wrote a book, How to Survive a Mass Shooting, so plug over. I would definitely check it out on Amazon. There you go. Yeah, thank you. But as a great author, I like to be data informed by a lot of things that I do.
And I know we may or may not talk about sort of what I do as an expert witness, but everything has to be sort of data informed. And as a great organization, there's actually another British guy here in Minnesota where I am. I thought I was the only British guy in Minnesota, but there's another British guy here.
Actually, we're now both British Americans, I should say, we've become citizens. But as a British American called Dr. James Densley and Dr. Ginny Peterson, they founded an organization called the Violence Prevention Project. You can go to violenceprevention.org, which is typing the violence project in your semen. They researched every mass shooting in America from 1966 to the current day.
They had unprecedented access to, I think it was six incarcerated mass shooters that were still living without access to, DOJ gave them access to court papers, they interviewed friends, family members, and their research is built around what are the similarities between all these, what all these mass shooters have in common. So to be data informed, we're still a relatively safe society. Yes, these acts of silence are becoming more common, and they're becoming more deadly. And the body count is increasing, but we're still a relatively safe. I think the number now, Trevor, sits around 202, 203 mass shootings, which is FBI data for more people, for many people killed.
So I'd encourage people to go to the violence prevention project. They've spent a lot of money working with an organization where you can manipulate the data, it's all free. It'll give you pie charts, it'll give you graphs. And go in and play around with the data and see what the data says, not what your neighbor says, not what your friends say, not what some expert on LinkedIn is saying is truthful. Go and look for yourself because the data is there. So go to the violence prevention project, and you can download their full database into an Excel spreadsheet, you can manipulate it, and you can see everything there. So I think awareness is the first thing to do, Trevor, is for sure.
I think the second thing, and I sort of wrote about this in my book a little bit, is becoming better informed about sort of the run hide fight. It was actually started, I mentioned Catherine Swight earlier, it was the Houston Police Department, after Sandy Hook, President Obama said, we need to be doing more around how we protect our children, what's the program we need to follow. So it's a tragedy that over a decade later was still scratching for answers to this question, but Obama tasked the FBI to come up with a program that could be a national program.
Catherine Swight was the head of the FBI team that sort of led this review. The Houston Police Department was already doing run hide fight, which was designed for people in transition areas. So then the FBI said, well, this is a program that we can get behind, and that became the national campaign run hide fight. I've been what I encourage people to do to do some learning about is over the years It's been adapted where people feel like you run first if I can't run away I hide if I can't hide from the danger I then fight And this is a misconception run hide fight is a menu dependent on the adverse situation You find yourself in so record this podcast with Travis. I'm in my studio in the basement of my house There's one door in if an arm the salient does come into my house.
It comes into room. I am I can't hide I can't run my only option is to fight so I think I'd encourage your listeners to go back and review the advice that has been given But look at it through the lens of this is a menu of options Dependent on the adverse situation you find yourself in and there's that is one of the reasons Why I still believe run hide fight has some merit and you know people call it deny defend delay and They'll call it and Alice has their own program, but they're all based around the three things I mean unless unless I'm missing something Travis you can either run away for the person with a gun You can either fight the person with a gun or I can hide from the person with a gun So don't don't be too confused by the hundreds of programs out there where everyone's setting their latest widget You really got those three options Assess from wherever you go and then consider it to be a menu. It's not an order It's a menu depending on the adverse situation you find yourself in I think if we can level set that a bit more With people's expectations, it'll give them more empowerment in in the moment Because we're conditioning people a little bit wrong right now where people feel like it's an order.
I've got to run first I've got a high second and I'm gonna fight last There could be many instances where you need to fight first because that is your own yuletron.
Travis: That's what makes sense Travis Yeah, that does that's helpful to think about it that way when you talk about the development of run hide fight Thinking about it more like a menu because just from an outside observer's perspective if you go on Amazon you could see a hundred different books about Active shooters scenarios about different perspectives So I think for someone that's less familiar They could easily be overwhelmed when they're trying to research the topic because it seems like there's such a huge volume of Information and also different perspectives out there.
Simon: Yeah, and there is no there is no right answer To a lot of these questions until you know obviously as security professionals like me you Travis We get a lot of what if questions like well, what if this happens? What if happens?
All you can do is give someone the foundation and say when you're in this situation Apply the run hide fight as to what is your best option because I can argue around what if questions all day? But until something actually happens, I can't tell you what to do and I think come another thing around this entire topic is You know law enforcement across the US had never been in a time where it'd be more challenged Where they're more under Utilize and under resource and recording this podcast soon after the enunciation school shooting in Minneapolis, Minnesota It took the police department three to four minutes to get there Three to four minutes is a long time So there's a saying when seconds count the police a minutes away When seconds count the police minutes away So you become that first responder and you have to take some type of positive action Until those until those good guys arrive because when seconds count the police minutes away You are the first responder in those first three to four minutes or can be even Firmers can even be longer if you're in a rural area So the question is what are you gonna do to help keep yourself and other people saying right?
Travis: Yeah, those are all very important things for us to think about especially as security practitioners even when we're walking going about our lives and we're in the really environments of others and And Simon that leads me to I know you do a lot of work also on the expert witness side and For some of our audience they may be less familiar with what an expert witness is How they help their clients could you share a little bit there?
Simon: Yeah, so I mean you see a lot of stuff on the TV right in it but everything gets glamorized as to what it is or what it sort of really means What I do as sort of a base level Travis is that an attorney's office will engage me To review a case that they are working on to form an opinion on What is the information in front of me most often is because There's a lawsuit that someone has failed to perform a duty of care and as a result of that failure Something bad has happened normally that is that is a loss of life So as the expert witness for a series of discovery, I will gather the information Reviews that meet let me give you a hypothetical example There is a public place will say it was a restaurant Which is privately owned and two people get into an argument inside that restaurant One pulls out a firearm and shoots of a person that person then dies The person is either apprehended for this and I will say the person that pretended Inside the restaurant by good members of society.
It said you just shot someone holding down What most often happens is the family of the deceased will then say well what what the circumstances to Simon get in Shot and killed inside this restaurant and I say there was no security. There was no duty of care The response was slow. They didn't have an AED which keep me alive I had no stop the bleed kid, you know always other things as a result of that They even start a lawsuit against the owners of the restaurant and other people to say that you felt to do your duty of care So as an expert witness really what it means Travis is that I'm looking at all the information to form an opinion based on Firstly Is the sort of a lawsuit defendable or are we in a position to say actually our client as the restaurant did form a duty of care and it's Industry standard to not really have any security in a restaurant or you might have someone who's trained or you know They've got one AED but no one must stop the bleed train which is Consistent across no nine to nine percent of the restaurants in in the US So as an expert witness really I'm just gathering all that information and then I'm right to my disposition around How I tried to to negate if you like what the lawsuit is about Using the materials and information that I can acquire But I should say well no but the restaurant in this situation They did what everyone would have done and it was Standard across what you'd see in the city of us. I'm breaking this down into a shoot for few moments of podcast What people often don't see or don't sort of hear on the sort of TV on there is that at the same time The person you're posing the lawsuit they're then going to try and find an expert who's going to go against my views and opinions to say actually Where Simon said this let's say like a was example trying to think of a well-known chain Olive garden I think I'm a garden is a US so This person is going to say well actually an olive garden of this size should have Security they should have arm security. They should have a branch operations plan They should have done one two three and had they done that The person that was shot would have had a better duty of care and thus may may have survived So that's often what people don't understand is that my opinion is going to be challenged by an expert But Similar to me more qualified than me less qualified, but someone's going to offer a sort of different different perspectives So it's not just I watch a couple videos and inform an opinion this is this is hours and upon hours of Gathering the information before I can even form what my true opinion is is of it So it is fun.
It is interesting But I think there's mostly some misconceptions is what people read in the news or or sort of seeing TV shows as to as to what it means And and then sometimes I will get information and I will say, you know, this this doesn't appear But in what they've said that we can we can sort of negate it. I can say That the organization have done everything everything possible So for an expert witness is not just an attorney's office rings me and says Simon Can we engage you to do this thing and send you all the materials? I have to be I have to be satisfied and confident in my mind that I have all the information To to make my opinion and to make my disposition of you know I'll deposition of what the information information is So I think that's possibly another misconception as well as I don't have to say yes to everything that gets presented presented to me if I don't feel that I can you know use my My skills and reputation against them and most often Travis to get there It's really just you know, I tend to focus in and around violence in the retail setting Because of my experience with brand assessment because my experience of being head of county towns and more America So generally of those were type of cases that attorneys bring me So I feel that my background is incredibly high and incredibly strong in those areas and under challenge You know under challenge my experience can be can be Substantiated and can be proven but I have a sort of deep deep knowledge of it So that's sort of but some of some of our some of the highlights.
Travis: I see yeah So in being the expert witness They're the clients looking to you because they know that you're a subject matter expert in this niche area that they might be Challenged in and then really at the end of the day you're helping defend their position So you have to understand all the unique details of the situation itself the environment about Policies procedures the inner workings of the organization. Yeah, that's all very interesting to me. Yeah.
Simon: Yeah, and and it is and you definitely find You know there might be nuances to how attorneys reach out But generally it's I actually had an attorney recently from the East Coast that reached out and said You know, I sort of want to share with you sort of what happened and I sort of said I've got to stop you there So I think I'm already representing someone in this case and and this attorney said no no This isn't a different city as oh man, but they all sounded the same So so generally you'll find expert witnesses such myself Specialized in a certain niche needs sort of area So so my niche isn't around retail settings with like use of force either be physical force or gun violence So so that's my sort of that's my sort of niche So they could be an expert witness that focuses on violence in around like movie theaters or like in a supermarket So so when you're looking next but witness you're generally fine They they go very this very narrow and they'll go very deep in in one area obviously What my my experience to be able to offer my opinion is based on being in charge of security At one of the country's largest open public venues that has 42 million Visitors a year as opposed to an expert that the defense might hire that worked in like a small mall that has you know 100 stores and it gets like no 10,000 visitors, you know like a Month it's not well, you know my experience Trump's short experience So so that's sort of what you'll find is people would go very narrow and very deep on that subject I
Travis: see yeah I could understand that from the perspective of the attorneys involved and how they're you know crafting their arguments and Simon one thing this reminds me of I did I attended this seminar. It was forever ago. It must have been Seven or eight years ago and they were briefly discussing What consulting might look like on the expert witness side and I do remember this specifically? They talked about how if you're someone who's in any type of public spotlight Even if it's something like writing articles on LinkedIn doing blog posts participating on podcasts They were making the point that if you're working if you're working as an expert witness but you're also publishing all of this content and Public information Online that could that could interfere with your work as an expert witness like I think in this seminar Specifically they were saying oh don't even don't even publish anything online at all And I've kind of always had that in the back of my mind. Do you have a perspective on that?
Simon: Yeah, so You may on your podcast have people that are security practitioners and feel what it well It might be interesting to get into this You know I have a lot of knowledge on a particular area might be interesting to get into being expert witness and if I do Travis You can definitely you can share my email.
I mean I said now my group one is just team at Kingswood SC comm and Travis can link it but if anyone's got any questions they want to talk about it. Absolutely so The answer really is is yes and a word caution so obviously I was head of counterterrorism at more America I was a servant detective in the United Kingdom in 2006 I did work on operation over which was a response to the liquid bomb terrorism plot I have done one two three things so I have to understand that as As I'm the expert witness for the defense They're gonna find someone to try and sort of find holes in my my position So they will look at my skills and experience. So obviously it's an it's an area where you have to be highly Integra there's has to be a high level of integrity But I know I am and I know I've done the things that I said I've done so I never worry about that So my skills experience is can't be challenged because because they are from food factual Where you can be challenged is perhaps any views and opinions you might have made online But I often try to be when I post things I try to be non part or I try to be non partisan in what my view and opinion is Even on on LinkedIn or I might pose views But obviously if my views go against like if I said as an example trying to think of one if I said that All my shootings in America are the results of mental illness and I write a blog post about that Then someone that comes to me and says We've got a case there was a shooting Can you look at it and then I fall in a opinion that I say all my shootings in America?
Well, or this mass shooting was caused by gangbangers getting into an argument. I'll see those two pinions I just use that you you're criminal spots and just use it as example But those two opinions are different So I wouldn't say that you can't say things on on LinkedIn and social media What you have to make sure is that your view and opinion is consistent and this comes The good thing about this is I would say don't What's the best way to the forensics is I wouldn't do Don't make sort of divisive comments or don't say things just to try and rattle a cage Which we see I'm not sure lawyer lists as a professional there on LinkedIn You see a lot of people try to rattle a cage on on LinkedIn And they use polarizing comments I think as long as your view and opinion is consistent Travis You're okay because again, someone might go back and say Simon you're saying this now as the expert witness one two three four But we have the social media LinkedIn posts that you posted in March of of 2014 where you said this I mean I'm a word I can't remember saying that so and it might go against what my advice is now Is it like what what is true and accurate Simon was this caused by mental illness was this caused by by gun crime? You know watch watch your son of star so if anyone has an interest in Bin X but where there's all just in general on LinkedIn I would just say as long as you as long as your views and opinions are consistent You know you're always going to be in a good good position because that's what you're that's what your The position is going based off is your opinion based on your experience based on your understanding of what what happened So I'm not coming across many cases Travis where someone has bought and foul of that But I would just say yeah, you got to be you got to be consistent if you're if you're posting stuff Givley to polarize and they're not your true views and opinions if you then move into that world They could be challenging so because it's easy to say well Yeah, in five years ago. I said that and and the point is what that's still my view now As opposed to say well, I kind of remember saying that what what what did I say?
Oops? That's that's different what my opinion is now so You know like I said, it's always better to say I was I have done these things I did say that and that is still my opinion opinion now So I wouldn't tell people to be shy away from it But just make sure that they're true of you their true views and opinions
Travis: sort of make sense that does yeah That that really helps me think about it differently and it even makes me think about in terms of people who are working as expert witnesses Or it may be more beneficial for expert witnesses who are a Gen X and maybe Millennials because I feel like if you're if you're Gen Z and you're just Entering this space you've also in her you've had so many more interactions because your entire life has been on social media If you've been participating like the rest of the culture so that I could see that being potentially a greater challenge for Gen Z and younger generations as they enter this space Because they've never had that dividing line because social media has been there their whole life So that's just something that I was thinking of as you started talking and mentioning that
Simon: Yeah, absolutely, and you know, I mean we see it in some cases with politicians and other leaders, right where Someone will find a social media comment going back three four five years Which at the time was missed but then becomes relevant in the future something No, no in as to the area that I work in it's just trying to be you know as transparent as as you can being highly ethical And and not saying I can't be on these platforms But just just being conscious before you hit upload is this something in one two three years As my view gonna still be the same or should I be posting this so I would I would say this to all security professionals because Travis I know I mean we haven't updated our website in five years most of the business we get to Kings of Security is Referrals, but I know that people go online and research who I am what what you're about So it's just even if you're a consultant on this listen to this podcast Someone's gonna Google your name someone's gonna see what comes up So I think wider than an expert witness. I think it's very wise just for people to in today's world Before you've got keyboard boring and you just hit upload or hit enter Just just just think about what is or saying because I've I've seen comments on LinkedIn where I've done that I've started to write and then I thought This isn't my battle to take up. I don't need to come in here But I've just deleted it and and ignored it Yeah,
Travis: right and that's just good advice all around career wise as far as not don't be partisan Don't be Inflammatory on purpose on LinkedIn. You're not going to you're not going to change anyone's mind So just yeah,
Simon: and I had it recently someone reached out to me and they said hey Simon I don't really know you know So one of the compensation of Lyman just fine And I said I don't really know your views and opinions on some of these like polarizing sort of subjects I sort of said there's a reason why is because my opinion doesn't matter It's what do the facts say what does the information information say so I think that's that's as you mentioned I think that's good practice for any security practitioner listen to podcast Or if you just listen to just podcast because you're interested in security is something you can do in your own life as well as to Is it relevant to share with you in opinion or is it what I said earlier about with the violence prevention project is What are the data say and as opposed to your opinion, you know, well, what does the data say? I'm in this situation and maybe start there Yeah, thank you.
Travis: I think that's that's very helpful advice all around and Also Simon kind of zooming out a little bit here and thinking more about aspiring practitioners and younger practitioners For those people out there who are listening to this podcast thinking, you know I think it would be really cool if in the future down the road once I've developed the experience that I could do something like Simon does and work on the consulting side. Is there any advice that you tend to give aspiring practitioners who are interested in Developing the career path to do the type of work that you do today Yeah, so it's a great question.
Simon: So Comparison is the feet for joy right comparison is the feet for joy So it is very easy to look at my my end result as to where I am now, you know I've I think we've got two Amazon best-selling books clients in 16 states form head of counter terrorism No, what are my five former detective is very easy to look at that and comparison is the feet for joy That is my journey and that is my journey alone So I would first of all say is don't compare yourself to someone else But but create your own path How did I get started? I was talking in a conference Disney and the police department reached out so we got a church and we think you can you can help and when I realized that As a Christian man, I really enjoy helping churches I sort of found my my niche around it Some people initially came to me and I charged them money Others I didn't charge because I had no idea how much to charge or I didn't even have a contract They married any any sort of terms and conditions. So I did a lot of stuff if someone out there is saying well, how do I grow?
I would start by saying, you know, it's okay to do some pro bono work to help people To to get those reference points. I had a very well-known Sports arena come to me recently And they said, you know, we don't have too much budget to engage you on these things I was thinking you it's massive arena. You you don't budget. However, I thought about it and said it is the thousands of dollars They're gonna pay me What is better is a reference from them and being able to get them to them or is it for Me to to be paid and because this is a nationally known I wouldn't say who it is because it's a nationally known Sports team and arena.
I said soon. Well, you know, I can't give it to you for free But but here's here's what the agreement can look like. Can you pay me X and then you'll reach out to other sport arenas? And then then that I'm assuming we're gonna do good work and you enjoy it Can I then use you as a reference on my proposals? To give you a name and email to reach out and if you like the world, so I know you will do and can you tell people? So I still do that a decade in I Still have these conversations because these references again, and then you can know once you get another reference You get a you get another reference So I would say to anyone young is don't compare yourself to someone else's journey because comparison is a fever joy And to get started don't be afraid to sort of break a robust for a little bit I mean as a as a consultant you're also an entrepreneur So so go and say hi can't give us as he can't but it's something is five thousand dollars I can't give you this for free, but can you pay me two thousand dollars three thousand dollars?
And will you give me a reference? And a guarantee that if I push someone to Travis Travis will say we really enjoyed working with Simon in his team We have no complaints. He did good work for that.
You got to do the good work Travis, right? Of course But I would get that and then once you start getting those referrals you can then build your sort of book of business from there So that's what I would say to people is don't be afraid To to negotiate or seek references initially because when you do good work they'll then tell other people So that's that's what I would sort of say to get started people are more and more and happy for people to reach out So you put my email in the show notes to give us some more advice But at the last thing I say to I was is you just got to get started I talked to so many people that say well when I get my masters, I'll be ready when I get my as is CPP I'll be ready when I get this my friend assessment qualification. I'll be ready It's like just you just do it now take take take action because honestly Travis honestly 95% of my clients have no idea what half these certifications are They don't know what they don't know what a tap is I have to tell them but then what a certified for the system certified Brett manager means but I don't know who as is is but I know what they don't know what a CPP means or PPS and stuff they have honestly about no idea what all these things are what they care about Simon is can you get me faster and quicker than what I would do on my own?
And can you help me through through this problem? That is what my clients really care about So so I'm sure a lot of people are thinking I'm not qualified enough. I'm not skilled enough I need more experience 95% of my clients have no idea because we these are Operations managers their facilities managers. I don't know a tap is I don't ask it is but they want to know is Have you helped someone before like me?
And can you help us be successful? So so don't let those things be be the be the bit of roadblocks I don't have I'm not a certified Brett manager for a tap. I don't have any qualifications from as is I haven't done too badly. I've got the experience to back it up So to don't let don't let qualifications hold you hold you back, right?
Travis: Yeah, and qualifications are not the end all be all It's a snapshot in time if you read a specific set of books and took an exam So I think and you mentioned this too First pro bono work that sounds like a like fantastic advice where people can really cut their teeth gather more experience Really just develop their consulting skills overall And I think that gets back to something you mentioned at the start of the podcast too Which is the value of relationships like when you first got started with the police It was because you had that relationship And those relationships are going to help you so much along the way Especially early in your career when there's going to be those times where you need direction You need an outside perspective because you just you haven't seen as much as some of your peers in the industry so I think also You mentioned it without saying it but also developing those relationships In the security industry and then also those relationships with the clients that you're serving
Simon: Yeah, and if you know someone um You know, I get this occasion very much like someone might say Can I come along with you to to a meeting or can I can I see how you do it? And you know? I see it as collaboration at the top competition at the bottom I mean there's there's hundreds or thousands of consultants like me I've got a good friend down in Texas with a ringman say Hey Simon, I've got this this bit.
I need to do. Um, what would you charge? Well? He's a friend in Texas, but he's a competitor of mine. Why am I going to help him? But I'm absolutely not going to help him because I might need the help as well So he'll send me a message and say hey, I might have a client for you It's too big for me to comrades.
I can't do it. What what would you charge for for this as well? So, yeah, but find find your find your collaborations And we've touched on LinkedIn a couple times been a powerful tool Is ask people in your network just saying if you ask 10 people saying Is there someone out there that you might know but knows the world is a dangerous place And might need my skills in emergency management or threat assessment or training um policy development, whatever it is And then if they say yeah, someone comes to mind What would you mind doing an introduction to to to email for them and then take the conversation Tell your conversation from there. So um ask your friends and family say do you know anyone that might need security? Because how do I get my referrals Travis someone somewhere has said I need a vulnerability assessment and someone said I know this guy called Simon Osmo I'm going to say different kings of security. That's what they do Would it help you if I connect you to them and then they get my email then they ring me up and someone said I've just been giving your name, you know, I'm looking to go for a vulnerability assessment Can you help me better understand what it is? So um, yeah having those people out there that can help support and assist you is also
Travis: key Yeah, I think that's fantastic advice for our aspiring practitioner listeners And there's still so much more that I want to talk about Simon, but I know we're coming up against the time So maybe we'll have to figure out another second follow-up podcast we could do sometime in the future Absolutely.
Yeah, it's been it's been good to talk to you. Yeah, but before we go Can you share how people can learn more about the work that you're doing how they can follow you?
Simon: Yeah, so kings would secure the consulting is our risk management arms So predominantly we travel around the country conducting deep dive vulnerability assessments and helping organizations to manage operations planning Invent sort of behavior based threat assessment is where we're on retaining with many organizations to help them do some of the things that we spoke about is to How do we move past that from insights to action and how do we make that plan?
So I've already assessments merchant braces planning and threat assessment They're the sort of the three stronger things that are what king kings would does And if you want to send an email to me, it's just team at kingswood sc.com Or the website is just kings with security You're just kingswood sc.com and you can find us and find more of the things that that we
Travis: do Thank you And I will be sure to link to all of your channels and your website as well In the show notes and simon. I really appreciate your time today Very informative conversation. It was great to learn more about your work on the expert witness side with behavioral threat assessments I hope in the future we could dive into more on house of worship security because I know you have a very unique perspective on it Um, yeah, and overall this was just incredibly educational. So I appreciate you sharing the time Yeah, thank you chavis.
Simon: We've covered a lot of ground, but you've done it in thoughtful ways. So really really appreciate it So thanks. Have me on thank you.
Travis: I really appreciate it And that concludes today's episode...
