LEIC Visit to Washington D.C.

Don Green, Chuck Shoopman and I recently traveled to Washington D.C at the request of Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Burch. We met Jim about a decade ago when he was a program manager in the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance. Jim has risen through the ranks of the Justice Department to a very influential position. LEIC has received significant funding through the years to support its training efforts across the U.S.

Jim accompanied us on a briefing with the "Law Enforcement Working Group" of the Department of Defense.  Every branch of the military was represented as well as the Defense Logistics Agency, Capitol Police, Homeland Security and the National Guard. I was impressed by the stars and stripes in the room! Within hours of our briefing, Don had already received two email inquiries about possible training opportunities between LEIC and DoD.

That afternoon we briefed the U.S. Department of Justice, Criminal Division, International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program. The mission of this program is to work with foreign governments to develop effective, professional and transparent law enforcement capacity. We are excited about the possibility of expanding our training to an international arena and have already committed to a follow up visit to discuss specifics.

We wrapped up the day with a briefing of our two visits with senior staff from Senator Lamar Alexander's office. All in all, it was a day well worth the visit to D.C.