Army CID is burned out and mismanaged by military police leadership, special agents say

| December 16, 2020

This surprises me none. Junior agents are sent to the busiest, most overworked bases where they are immediately put in over their heads. The Army gives all the officers and senior enlisted advisor positions within/over CID to military police personnel who have no experience or training in running large-scale criminal investigations.

Worse than all that is that they take CID special agents out of the field to provide executive protection to high ranking Army officials. Up to a quarter of their SAs are in the Protective Services Battalion! You can trust MPs to scan IDs at the gate and secure Fort Knox’s gold vault, but the SECARMY and CSA need to be protected by special agents.

Army Criminal Investigation Command has been dealing with inexperienced and overworked investigators at large Army posts for years, according to four career special agents who’ve served at a mix of domestic and overseas CID offices.

Many of the problems stem from CID’s subordination to military police officers, who lack backgrounds in felony investigations but influence priorities. Equally troubling are the security details to protect senior Pentagon officials, which steal away a large number of investigators in their prime, said the four agents, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect their current and future jobs.

Newly minted agents are routinely dispatched to large bases, like Fort Hood, Fort Bragg or Fort Lewis, where they make up a significant portion of investigators assigned there, according to the agents.

Just as junior investigators become competent at their jobs, they’re regularly sent to work security for the secretary of defense, the chief of staff and other senior officials. It’s a detail called Protective Services Battalion, and it utilizes roughly one-quarter of available CID agents, according to those with whom Army Times spoke.

Much, much more at the source; Army Times

Thanks to Jeff LPH 3 for sending in the link.

Category: "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves", Army, Crime, Guest Link, Police

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penguinman000

The security detail thing has become a status symbol. Look how important I am! I have a detail. Far too many folks have them and not just in DoD. Even the postmaster general has a detail. I would be 80-90% don’t actually need details. They need lower profiles and potentially the ability to carry.

If some random general wants a detail then he/she should get the billets assigned to their UIC.

Shouldn’t CID be, oh I don’t know, conducting criminal investigations?

11B-Mailclerk

Any soldier can guard someone/something. It is common task skillset.

If you want to say it needs “special” then set up a “badge” class. Use a Shield-based skill-badge for “Protective services” (basic/expert/master) Moar bling!

Send snuffy to badge class and run the test. Instant detail and General Richardknoggin has his “special” perk.

Do -not- waste a good investigator on bodyguard tasking. Investigators run down the kooks. Guards keep them at bay. -way- different skillset and mentality. USSS makes the same mistake. Bigly.

penguinman000

I didn’t realize how prevalent this was until I had retired and was working out in ND. A PSD member for the postmaster general showed up to my workplace to conduct recon prior to her arriving in a couple of days.

I thought it was a joke.

5JC

Any soldier can guard something but… this isn’t about guarding it is about personal security. This is a whole different skill set. It involves sending out a recon, inspecting facilities prior to the arrival of the primary, checking agendas, transportation routes and infrastructure, hotel rooms and a whole laundry list of other stuff. It requires a mature adult able to operate independently with little to no supervision. This isn’t Specialist Snuffy who keeps forgetting not to use his governmenr travel card to buy strippers with. It’s hard enough to get the Secret Service to behave all the time there is no way a line platoon of MPs could hold it together.

Now you can argue whether or not the TRADOC commander or Deputy to the Deputy of Sec Armt needs such treatment but if you are going to do it it needs to be done right. So an SQI with bling might be a way to go.

11B-Mailclerk

So …. Patrolling. Anyone who can do patrolling decently could do what you describe with some familiarization.

Not investigating. Not hardly. Different skillset and mindset.

And I am of the opinion that far too many of these “protective details” are protective of status, not from real threats.

5JC

I agree on the status thing but I disagree on the rest. Hard to explain unless you have done both. It is a different skill set. Maybe as different as an auto mechanic and an aircraft mechanic.

SGT Ted

It’s the result of typical brown nosing of the Army’s “up or out” officer promotion culture, as well as the ongoing lack of true law enforcement experience of the MP officer corps that leads to this sort of misuse.

They should be using SRT or PSD trained regular MPs for security. CID aren’t spear point trigger pullers. They are investigators.

KoB

FTA “They’re worried about covering bases.” No they’re worried about covering asses.

Read the article, ‘specially the very last paragraph where the MajGen in Charge babbles out her multispeak. The same bullsh^t that has pervaded our entire system of government has polluted the Military as well. The things that she speaks of starting to do are the things they should have been doing all along. Nobody wants to do their job, but they do want those Is dotted and those Ts crossed. Long as it looks good on paper when the IG comes thru, we good to go. And NONE of us have ever seen THAT happen…have we? /s/

And the status symbol that p’man alludes to in the FIRST comment? Yep, the detail and the oversize Tahoe/Suburban SUV. Ol’ Boy that owned the Chevy Dealership told me there’s more of them sold around DC to wanna beez than the grubmint buys for its use. Lot of them even put fake antennas on there to make it appear more important.

Bones

All the other services have a leavening of civilian agents, (CID has a few in fraud), and they have professional investigative leadership.

Not CID.

All the other services send their investigators to the federal Law Enforcement Training Center for initial training. This ensures that they get the same basic instruction as nearly every other Fed Special Agent.

Not CID. They have their own school at the MP School.

This means that you have an insulated, MP-centric corps of investigators. Add to that the vast number of Generals and “dignitaries” in the Army who get protective details, and you have problems.

Most other services operate investigators by some amount of “big boy rules”. The conventional Army never heard of such a thing.

(I’m former Army, and retired reserve – not Army criminal investigator)

Sapper3307

Does anybody else remember the day(s) that a CID agent got moved into your barracks? “I like to party,who has the drugs”?

SFC D

I spend a lot of my workday in various AIT barracks, usually in the DS offices or command group. Most of the trainees believe we’re all CID, and the DS’s do nothing to counter it. It’s an effective tool. Keeps the little troopies on their toes.

Sapper3307

Walk a dog around the barracks a listen to the toilets flush, fear works.

11B-Mailclerk

Have a buddy from another unit bring in the family mutt for a walkabout.

(Grin)

David

Once knew a coupla Customs agents who won an award for designing a complicated machine, a box with lots of flashing lights etc. prominently labeled in Spanish “Illegal Drugs Detector”. In actuality all that nonsense concealed the camera the agents used to watch whomever got nervous when reading the sign.

11B-Mailclerk

Road sign just before a bend in the highway: “Drug and alcohol enforcement checkpoint 1 mile”

Unmarked car waiting to see who reacts badly.

KoB

Multiple agencies have fun doing this one every year, same time, same place. They’ve had multiple repeat customers.

Pro tip…Federal Law prohibits a license/safety check that stops traffic ON the Interstate.

https://www.13wmaz.com/article/news/local/dozens-arrested-in-st-patricks-day-dui-checkpoint/93-423545922

11B-Mailclerk

“Honk twice if you are stoned!”

You just know some stoner is gonna…

NTXVet

Customs has a stop on I-10 i n West Texas. Maybe they didn’t get the note…

The Stranger

Also on I-8 in California and on I-35 just north of Laredo.

KoB

I think that is just for local or state popo, the Feds (Customs ect and the Military) can do as they please. During DS1 when the buildup was starting, the intersection of I-75 and I-16 was getting clogged with Military vehicles coming out of Benning, Ft Gillem et al heading to the Port Wentworth Facilities in Savannah. They started re-routing POV and truck traffic off the big road onto other US and State Routes. Good Times.

Anonymous

Never eat beef jerky in front of the military working dog– they won’t do their job unless you share.

Andy11M

when I got to my first unit, there was a rumor that I was CID, mainly because I “looked” like an officer, specifically I was tall, lanky, had a bad high and tight and wore glasses that I guess made me look like a fresh 2nd Lt.

26Limabeans

They were everywhere in Germany circa 1969.
It was kind of a joke because they were so obvoius.

Andy11M

CID at Hood has been a mess since the mid/late 90’s when I was there. If Joe wasn’t such a criminal master mind, they never would have made any arrests. They were keystone cops who got off on walking around in civies with their guns on their belts where everyone could see them.
Had a guy in my unit at Hood who was dealing (I didn’t know at the time or what he was selling), but some guy in another unit pissed hot and offered him up to CID for a deal on his punishment. The guy told me they met in a parking lot late at night and he knew they guy was El Cid instantly and walked away. Next day CID scooped him up out in Killeen and dragged him to the CID offices and violated most of his rights under UCMJ (didn’t read him his rights, didn’t even tell him he was detained.under arrest, a few other things) basically gave his defense lawyer all the ammo he needed to destroy their case. Should have heard him laugh as he told me the story.

Cameron

Wow. That ship pretty much sank before it even left the harbor. Talk about grade A incompetence.

Anonymous

“Can’t anyone here play this game?” –Casey Stengel (asking of the NY Mets)

Sapper3307

Perhaps they need a T.V show?
I present TAH, Delta CID
Worth the chuckle.
https://youtu.be/VXYO9WBh6iQ

Andy11M

I want the 12 mins of my life I wasted forcing myself to watch that entire thing. Did they even have a actual military advisor on that?

5JC

The last 3 minutes was black screen, that must have been the easy part.

I chuckled though. The Dirty Dozen meets NCIS. Seems legit. Criminals make the absolute best soldiers and super agents. That is why they lock them up, to keep from embarrassing everyone else.

Sapper3307

I thought it was a DOD recrement film?
YEARS WASTED!

Anonymous

They should ditch the berets, for starters…

timactual

Sounds all too familiar. I was hoping to see the band of quirky characters Col. X assembles. Particularly the “Mr. T” character (You can’t spell Team without a “T”).

Stacy0311

To be fair, NIS (now NCIS) was a joke back in the 80s and 90s. Bunch of Keystone Kops in JC Penney off the rack suits thinking they were FBI or Magnum PI wannabes.

11B-Mailclerk

So, totally unlike the TV show? So disappointed….

Sapper3307

FYI- Obama bought that house and had it bulldozed.
His long time man friend (DADT?) bought it for him.
https://youtu.be/vo3hAxYv3Fk

Dennis - not chevy

Let’s not forget the AF OSI. I heard a witness tell the prosecutor if the OSI hadn’t acted as Keystone Kops he’d know the answer to his question. After much laughter, the judge wouldn’t strike the witness’s statement.

Skippy

So those two shitty details
That screwed me out of two of my NCOs
In Iraq to help baby-sit a dirty US Senator
From Arizona was all bullshit ???

BHWHAHAHAHA !!!!!!

Smitty

I worked with former army CID agents who were FBI, ATF, DEA. All were top notch investigators. I was MPI back in the 70s. My recollection of back then was the CID men were respected by federal agents as well as state and local cops.

11B-Mailclerk

20 years of war with no victory objective corrodes everything good and useful.