Meeting the challenge that began on April 20, 2001 was more than an ad hoc undertaking or a lucky break. In October 2000, SAIC Jeremiah Sullivan, had been designated Lead Federal Chair for Operation North Star's mid-Atlantic region - a coordinated U.S.-Canadian working group designed to combat cross border crime. The Buffalo SAIC Office was tapped as a critical intelligence-sharing resource in that effort, and Canadian law enforcement indicated to Sullivan that intelligence-sharing during the upcoming Summit of the Americas would be a priority.

As the date for the Summit of the Americas drew closer, Customs went to work. The Buffalo SAIC Office became the primary facilitator in an effort that would eventually engage major law enforcement organizations on both sides of the border and ensure a smooth, collaborative effort.

Senior Special Agent Michael Szrama is the Acting Supervisor of Buffalo’s Intelligence Collection and Analysis Team. "The reasoning behind the ICAT's efforts during the Summit of the Americas," says Szrama, "was fundamental to preclude the discord and violence that had marked the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle." Both Sullivan and Szrama knew the ICAT team had precisely the kinds of skills and capabilities needed to meet the challenge. The goal was to deploy ICAT to diffuse a bad situation before it even began.

Meeting the challenge
The ICAT plan was straightforward: study the tactics and strategies used in past demonstrations by the same groups planning to demonstrate in New York. Call in all the law enforcement agencies involved for presentations by experts on protests and demonstrations, training sessions, and strategy development. Advise state, local, and other federal law enforcement officials on what ICAT can do to support their personnel and Customs personnel at all ports of entry. Sell the idea of domestic and international cooperation. Build a tight, impenetrable web of enforcement resources.

The plan worked. Michael Vanacore acted as point of contact in the Office of Strategic Investigations in Washington, D.C., providing critical planning support and making sure primary players at Headquarters in all the enforcement agencies involved stayed committed to multi-agency enforcement exchange and real-time information sharing. Sam Neglia, also from Strategic Investigations, traveled to Buffalo from Customs Headquarters in Washington, D.C., to brief an interagency enforcement group on previous protests and demonstrations and how early planning could make a difference. The ICAT unit set up an electronic communications system designed to send vital information simultaneously and in real-time to each enforcement organization - to the Coast Guard, Canadian Customs, the Ontario Provincial Police, the New York State Police, the Buffalo Police Department, the Erie County Sheriffs Department, the Federal Protective Service, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Niagara Regional Police, the General Services Administration in the U.S., the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the U.S. Border Patrol. The communications service staffed by ICAT team members would be up and running 24/7, as would the team's intelligence gathering efforts and its ongoing analyses of unfolding events.

Planning pays off
The day and night planning and preparation was worth it. Demonstration organizers who had planned to engage Native Americans from the Ackwesasne Reservation near Messana, N.Y., in a protest there watched their plans deteriorate when residents of the reservation decided not to get involved. Near the Peace Bridge in Buffalo, however, things were going better for the various "affinity groups" determined to press their assorted causes. On Friday, April 20, "anarchists" dressed in black military-type uniforms, hoods, and facemasks; enraged environmentalists; and champions of "oppressed people everywhere" appeared with their own medics, legal observers, and independent media people to begin a forward march from Front Park in Buffalo onto the Peace Bridge. The plan was to occupy the bridge and to stop traffic in both directions across the U.S.-Canadian border.

What demonstrators could not have known was that ICAT team members were providing minute-by-minute intelligence reports to local and state police, keeping track of shifting threats, and sending tactical directions to riot police forming a defensive wall between protestors and the police. ICAT intelligence indicated that a small group of the most dedicated protestors had planned an attempt to penetrate police barricades and make it onto the bridge - but it never happened. Confronted by what was clearly a well-planned and well-executed defensive strategy, the demonstrators stopped before they reached the Peace Bridge and violence was averted. Teach-ins and non-violent protests took place in the park and near the bridge, but in the end, both the demonstrators and the law enforcement personnel tasked with maintaining order left the scene without mishap.

There is an old truism that says people only pay attention to a situation when everything goes wrong - success often goes unnoticed. For the ICAT team and the SAIC Buffalo Office, even its relatively "unsung" success at preventing violence during the Summit of the Americas is still a victory to be savored. Months of planning and preparation, and a commitment to taking the lead in an effort that never promised to be easy or high profile, paid off for the Customs team in Buffalo. The harmony that makes the Peace Bridge a reliable conduit for international trade was preserved. The citizens of Buffalo were protected. And in that environment, where order and stability never broke down, and in the true American way, the voices of the men and women who came to protest were heard.