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  | This article about a novelist of the United States born in the 1950s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
Christopher Whitcomb | |
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| Born | January 15, 1959 |
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| Nationality | American |
Christopher Whitcomb (born January 15, 1959) is an American author and former member of the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team. He also appeared as an "expert" on the NBC game show Identity .
Whitcomb spent 15 years with the FBI as a special agent from 1987 to 2002 and worked on many high-profile cases. Whitcomb joined FBI Hostage Rescue Team in 1991 after completing a rigorous two week specialized selection process and six month training course known as New Operator Training School" or "NOTS". Whitcomb was a participant at the Waco siege, LA Riots, and Ruby Ridge. His final assignment with the FBI consisted of working with the Critical Incident Response Group. He was one of seven snipers involved in the killing of Vicki Weaver at Ruby Ridge.
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The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, the FBI is also a member of the U.S. Intelligence Community and reports to both the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence. A leading U.S. counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and criminal investigative organization, the FBI has jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crimes.
The Oklahoma City bombing was a domestic terrorist truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, on April 19, 1995, the second anniversary of the end to the Waco siege. The bombing was the deadliest act of terrorism in U.S. history until the September 11 attacks in 2001, and remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history.
The Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) is the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) elite tactical unit. The HRT was formed to provide a full-time federal law enforcement tactical capability to respond to major terrorist incidents throughout the United States. Today, the HRT performs a number of tactical law enforcement and national security functions in high-risk environments and conditions and has deployed overseas, including with military Joint Special Operations Command units.
The FBI Academy is the Federal Bureau of Investigation's law enforcement training and research center near the town of Quantico in Prince William County, Virginia. Operated by the bureau's Training Division, it was first opened for use on May 7, 1972, on 385 acres (156 ha) of woodland, which is not available for public tours. The academy was opened for the purpose of training the new agents after FBI agents were granted the power to arrest, and to possess a firearm, in 1933. As the newly armed agents needed somewhere to train, the Marine Corps granted them access to their firing ranges in Quantico, Virginia. After outgrowing the Marine Corps firing ranges the FBI was granted permission to build their own firing range and classroom on the base. Over time they added new sections such as a whole new wing, kitchen, and basement. But with the rapid growth it still was not enough for their needs.
Rainbow Six is a techno-thriller novel written by Tom Clancy and released on August 3, 1998. It is the second book to primarily focus on John Clark, one of the recurring characters in the Ryanverse, after Without Remorse (1993); it also features his son-in-law, Domingo "Ding" Chavez. Rainbow Six follows "Rainbow", a secret international counterterrorist organization headed by Clark, and the complex apocalyptic conspiracy they unravel after handling multiple seemingly random terrorist attacks.
The 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta, referred to variously as Delta Force, Combat Applications Group (CAG), Army Compartmented Elements (ACE), or within Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), Task Force Green, is a special operations force of the United States Army, under operational control of JSOC. The unit's missions primarily involve counterterrorism, hostage rescue, direct action, and special reconnaissance, often against high-value targets.
Ruby Ridge was the site of a siege of a cabin occupied by the Weaver family in Boundary County, Idaho in August 1992. It began on August 21, when deputies of the United States Marshals Service (USMS) came to arrest Randy Weaver under a bench warrant after his failure to appear on federal firearms charges.
The Waco siege, also known as the Waco massacre, was the siege by U.S. federal government and Texas state law enforcement officials of a compound belonging to the religious cult known as the Branch Davidians between February 28 and April 19, 1993. The Branch Davidians, led by David Koresh, were headquartered at Mount Carmel Center ranch in unincorporated McLennan County, Texas, 13 miles northeast of Waco. Suspecting the group of stockpiling illegal weapons, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) obtained a search warrant for the compound and arrest warrants for Koresh and several of the group's members.
Lon Tomohisa Horiuchi is an American former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) sniper and former United States Army officer who was involved in the 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff and 1993 Waco siege. In 1997, Horiuchi was charged with manslaughter for killing Vicki Weaver at Ruby Ridge; the charges were later dropped.
Randall Claude Weaver was an American survivalist and self-proclaimed white separatist. He was a central actor in the 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff with federal agents at his cabin near Naples, Idaho, during which his wife and son were killed. Weaver was charged with murder, conspiracy, and assault as well as other crimes. He was acquitted of most of the charges, but was convicted of failing to appear in court on a previous weapons charge and sentenced to 18 months in prison. His family eventually received a total of $3,100,000 in compensation for the killing of his wife and son by federal agents.
The Critical Incident Response Group (CIRG) is a division of the Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation. CIRG enables the FBI to rapidly respond to, and effectively manage, special crisis incidents in the United States.
The Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord (CSA) was a far-right survivalist anti-government militia which advocated Christian Identity and was active in the United States during the 1970s and early 1980s. The CSA developed from a Baptist congregation, the Zarephath-Horeb Community Church, which was founded in 1971 in Pontiac, Missouri. Over time, Zarephath-Horeb evolved into an extremist militant group and it was rechristened the CSA. The group operated a large compound in northern Arkansas which was known as "the Farm".
Last Man Standing is a crime thriller novel written by David Baldacci and released on November 6, 2001 by Warner Books. The novel depicts an ambush on an FBI Hostage Rescue Team unit and the titular sole survivor's investigation into how it happened and who could be responsible for it.
"American militia movement" is a term used by law enforcement and security analysts to refer to a number of private organizations that include paramilitary or similar elements. These groups may refer to themselves as militia, unorganized militia, and constitutional militia. While groups such as the Posse Comitatus existed as early as the 1980s, the movement gained momentum after standoffs with government agents in the early 1990s. By the mid-1990s, such groups were active in all 50 US states, with membership estimated at between 20,000 and 60,000.
The Golden Gate is a novel written by the Scottish author Alistair MacLean. It was first released in the United Kingdom by Collins in 1976 and later in the same year by Doubleday in the United States.
FBI Special Weapons and TacticsTeams are specialized part-time SWAT teams of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The FBI maintains SWAT teams at each of its 56 field offices throughout the United States. Each team is composed of a varying number of certified SWAT operators, dependent on office size and funding.
Danny Coulson is a former Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI. In his thirty-year tenure at the FBI, Coulson created and commanded the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team and commanded four field divisions.
The Maersk Alabamahijacking began on 8 April 2009, when four pirates in the Somali Basin seized the U.S. cargo ship Maersk Alabama at a distance of 240 nautical miles southeast of Eyl, Somalia. The siege ended after a rescue effort by the United States Navy on 12 April.
The 2014 rescue mission in Syria was an American led effort to locate and rescue hostages being held by Islamic State (IS) forces. Plans to rescue the hostages were accelerated after the execution of journalist James Foley, Steven Sotloff, and Kayla Mueller by IS militants. A total of 14 hostages were held hostage by the IS at an undisclosed location. Though no soldiers were killed, the mission failed to locate and rescue the hostages.
On January 15, 2022, Malik Akram, a 44-year-old British Pakistani armed with a pistol, took four people hostage in the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, United States, during a Sabbath service. Hostage negotiations ensued, during which Akram demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani national and alleged al-Qaeda operative imprisoned in nearby Fort Worth for attempted murder and other crimes. He released one hostage after six hours, and the remaining three hostages escaped eleven hours into the standoff. Tactical officers from the FBI Hostage Rescue Team subsequently entered the synagogue and fatally shot Akram.