On Tuesday morning, while executing a search warrant in Sunrise, Florida, in furtherance of a violent crimes against children case, FBI Special Agents Daniel Alfin, 36, and Laura Schwartzenberger, 43, were killed in the line of duty. They were mortally wounded by gunfire from the target of the investigation, who reportedly monitored their approach via a doorbell camera. Three other FBI personnel were wounded by the assailant, who has been reported to be deceased.
Both agents are survived by spouses and children. Their martyrdom has left my former agency reeling. Hazards are certainly part of the job. Depriving dangerous folk of their freedoms; bringing them into custody and arranging their meeting with the justice system is a business fraught with peril. Yet when law enforcement officers are slain, it still shocks the senses. Heart-wrenching news like this from the greater Miami area is especially sobering for the FBI family. In 1986, the cold-blooded murders of Special Agents Benjamin Grogan and Jerry Dove by two serial bank robbers prompted the typically resistant-to-change bureau to reevaluate its training and abandon its .38 and .357 revolvers, ultimately adopting higher-capacity pistols for issuance to new agents. Details of the shootout became part of analytical training practicums.
The shock and reverberations from the “Miami shootout” were still palpable in the Practical Applications Unit training I received at Quantico in early 1991. Course corrections in the tradition-laden FBI are akin to turning around an aircraft carrier. But the 1986 incident ushered in a new era of safety protocols and required arrest plan approvals by senior FBI executives. Yesterday’s tragedy will have a similar impact on the conduct of court-authorized arrests and searches by FBI agents. My experiences inform me that the obligatory internal shooting investigation — conducted by the FBI’s Inspection Division (the bureau’s version of Internal Affairs or an Inspector General) — will return findings that highlight how seemingly “nonviolent” felony warrants should be handled with the commensurate danger levels that they present.
In the 1986 “Miami shootout,” responding agents were staking out a bank likely to be hit by the bank robbery team. They were ill-equipped, armament-wise, to counter two committed, well-armed criminals with nothing to lose. The Miami FBI bank robbery squad was in a reactive capacity. They were charged with apprehending the bad guys if/when they next struck. The agents dispatched on Tuesday to execute a court-ordered search warrant for child pornography in Sunrise, Florida, were part of a team of FBI assets. Undoubtedly included were members of the Miami FBI Office’s crime scene specialists, the Evidence Response Team. There were also members of CART, the Computer Analysis Response Team. These highly-trained specialists are called in when forensic harvesting is necessary to make a case.
I have experience in this realm. As the crisis management coordinator for the FBI’s New York Office between 2005 and 2008, I witnessed firsthand the ERT and CART specialists who served as the “margin of victory” when complex cases demanded production of irrefutable evidence by way of latent fingerprints, hair and fiber analysis, and the disassembling of the infinite and nebulous spaces cached in a computer hard drive.
And yet, how could a “nonviolent” felon possess the capacity to murder FBI agents during the conduct of their official duties? What should have transpired yesterday — the “apprehension without incident” (law enforcement parlance) of a suspect not seemingly predisposed to violence — is why defense lawyers consistently argue that the government can “overreact” or “misapply” its resources in an (over)abundance of caution. Well, this massacre proved why they are woefully wrong.
Those engaged in pedophilia and the production or consumption of child pornography are not a normal lot. They do not typically operate in the open circles of unabashed and unapologetic street criminals. Some criminals acknowledge who and what they are. Often, these deviants do not. They tend to lead double lives — by day, pillars of the community, and by night, purveyors of disgustingly harmful materials. Their aberrant behavior preys upon the most innocent and defenseless in our midst. In the prison system, they are considered the lowest-of-the-low and subject to violent attacks, often requiring they be placed in special housing units. This is what makes them the most desperate and dangerous criminals. When their world collapses and their secrets are exposed, when the long arm of the law ultimately catches up to their predations, they quickly recognize that life as they once knew it is over. The embarrassment, the shame, the clinical diagnoses to follow all begin to quickly close in upon them.
It makes them a most dangerous and unpredictable outlaw with which to reckon.
We do not have all the details behind yesterday’s murders of two honorable and heroic FBI agents. But when we do, here is what one of the evergreen findings will most assuredly be: There exists no such thing as an “ordinary arrest.” When we move away from fear of the “optics” and treat every apprehension with the requisite amount of respect for potential danger, we will afford our cops, troopers, investigators, and agents a safer environment in which to conduct their business.
Of course, these are not normal times. The woke crowd demands we defund and abolish the police. They insist we “reimagine public safety” by introducing social workers, mental health professionals, and violence interrupters to do the job of the sheepdogs. They believe that “decarceration” is actually viable. They misguidedly ignore the evil that FBI Special Agents Alfin and Schwartzenberger bravely went to confront. They are the naïve and the protected. But they need the men and women who volunteer to take great risks in great causes. Causes, that is, like leaving home early to bring suspected pedophiles to justice.
If we are to do anything to substantively honor Alfin’s and Schwartzenberger’s memories, let’s marginalize the voices that demonize law enforcement and naively pretend evil doesn’t exist. Rest easy, Dan and Laura. Thank you for your ultimate sacrifice. We have the watch from here.
James A. Gagliano (@JamesAGagliano) worked in the FBI for 25 years. He is a law enforcement analyst for CNN and an adjunct assistant professor in homeland security and criminal justice at St. John’s University. Gagliano is a member of the board of directors of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund.
