Iacsp Bulldozer

Vol.14, No.4Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International

www.iacsp.com


An Israeli police officer stands guard in front of a

bulldozer at the scene of an attack in Jerusalem July 22, 2008. A bulldozer

went on a rampage in Jewish west Jerusalem, in the second such attack in July, and rammed into

cars before the bulldozer’s driver was shot dead, police said. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun (JERUSALEM)

Extreme Situations Extreme Measures Lessons Learned from the Jerusalem Bulldozer Attack

By Dov Zwerling

Vol.14, No.4Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security InternationalVol.14, No.4Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International

The first to intercede were a female police officer and an armed bank guard who witnessed the terrorist’s use of the bulldozer as a weapon. Understanding his deadly intent, they opened fire on the terrorist. After apparently being shot, Dewayt slouched, bleeding from his head, and the bulldozer came to a halt. Another passing patrol officer (an Israeli Arab himself) climbed up to the cab, reportedly checked the ter-rorist’s vitals and decided that he was no longer a threat. The armed guard stepped back and the policeman took control of the scene. Two more by-standers, one an armed civilian and the second an unarmed and off-duty soldier, climbed up to the cab to as-sist the officer in taking the terrorists legs off of the gas pedal, turning off the tractor and applying the brakes. For all those on the scene appeared as if the event was over.

An angry civilian threw a rock at the driver that hit him in the head, awakening him. In fact the driver hadn’t been shot at all; the blood on his head came from ricochets of class from the windshield. Sud-denly, the terrorist screamed “Allah Huakbar”, slammed his foot on the gas as the bulldozer lurched forward, running over and killing one more civilian. The policeman and the armed civilian who had climbed to the cab remained on the moving bulldozer, attempting to remove the terrorist’s hands and feet from the controls. The off-duty soldier drew a weapon from the civilian’s holster and aimed into the cab, at Dewayt’s

On Wednesday July 2, 2008, at

approximately 12 noon in on one of the

busiest streets in downtown Jerusalem,

Hussam Dewayt, an Israeli Arab from

the Jerusalem village of Zur Bakher,

climbed into a Caterpillar bulldozer

being used for local road works and

began a four minute terror rampage.

Dewayt drove a few hundred yards,

running over vehicles, bus stops and

over-turning a bus filled with innocent

passengers. He continued to attack

civilians with the bulldozer’s powerful

shovel until he was neutralized by a few

armed bystanders and policemen.

rules of engagement; often those rules are stricter than those facing American officers. Every morning the Israeli cop is told in the brief-ing- If you see “Weapon and Intent” you can use deadly force “BUT only if there is no other way to stop the threat AND you are not making the situation worse AND you must keep the damage to a minimum.” That is a lot for any cop to consider while under pressure.

During the bulldozer attack, Police-woman “E” and Security Guard “O”, the first on the scene, recognized both Weapon and Intent and, consistent with rules of engagement, opened fire on the driver. After the driver stopped and was believed to be incapacitated, the two believed the “intent” to no longer be a factor.

Once the driver awoke (after being shot multiple times) and again started to attack with the vehicle, the three who were in the cab with the attacker needed to hold on for dear life as the bulldozer crushed another car and a police motorcycle. At this point the Special Patrol Unit officer “E”, armed with an AR-15, was on the ground but could not get a clear shot. He had to take into consideration the condition of “not making the situa-tion worse” by inadvertently killing one of the three people in the cab who were struggling with the attacker.

Active Shooter?Or Active Killer? The Active Shooter is the profes-sional phrase for a person who has used deadly force and continues to use deadly force while having unrestricted access to additional victims. - (Sheriff’s Office Policy and Procedure Manual. Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA: El Paso County Sheriff’s Office, “Chapter 7”, 2004-01-01.)

Numerous examples of killing sprees can be listed. Vehicular attacks, multiple knife assaults, acid attacks, throwing of blunt objects from height are all situa-tions that we have encountered in Israel and fall within the category of “Active Shooter” – or perhaps more suitably referred to as the “Active Killer.”

In most cases the active shooter is thought of as someone with a gun or a rifle; these are easiest to identify because they are loud, obvi-ously violent and rare - the violent nature of these attacks reduces the consideration involved in rules of engagement and thus make the situ-ation easier for law enforcement to face. The more complicated situa-tion of “active shooter” is when the suspect is not shooting at all (in this case the Active Shooter, as defined,

does not necessarily have to be shooting, but may be killing, as in the case of the bulldozer).

The single answer to any situation of the “Active Killer” is the immediate need to neutral-ize the perpetra-tor. The Israel i military’s (IDF) “Constant Push for Contact” is one of its most important maxims. Although it is a military tac-tic, this philosophy is easily applied to c iv i l i an l aw enforcement one that many civilian police regulations may lack. It is the understanding that once it is realized that a situation is

“Active Killer”, every second that is wasted on

other actions can and will cost lives.

head, discharging four rounds, three of which struck the assailant in the head. At the same time a member of the Jerusalem Special Patrol team managed to climb onto the cab and fired one more round to the head of the terrorist.

Each of the bystanders and police officers who reacted during the course of the attack behaved differ-ently. This article examines how training and perception affected the mindset of the players involved in the response to the attack.

As is common practice following terror attacks in Israel, the actions of those involved are evaluated in order to maximize the amount of information that can be used to confront and/or prevent future at-tacks. After speaking with a number of those directly involved, I will lay out the lessons that we have learned from this attack.

Although the nature of the bulldozer attack is unconventional there are still similarities to other well-known attacks that occurred in Israel and the United States. On July 6, 1989, on the Tel Aviv - Jerusalem High-way, a Palestinian terrorist walked to the front of bus 405 and, with perfect timing, grabbed the steering wheel, steering the bus off of a cliff. Four-teen civilians were killed and thirty injured. A number of other vehicular attacks have been successful including an attack in Israel in which a ter-rorist stole a bus and went on a killing spree, running over soldiers at bus stops. The use of an innocent vehicle for the purpose of terror, while on a grander scale, was also implemented in the 9/11 attacks.

Weaponand Intent

In my lectures to U.S. law enforcement about the tactical consid-erations of Suicide Bomber Interdiction or Patrol Officers in Active Shooter Situations, I am constantly bombarded with the complaint that, “You in Israel have lax rules of engagement, we can’t do that here in the States.” Most are surprised when I tell them that law enforce-ment in Israel indeed has stringent

The single answer to any situation of the “Active Killer” is the immediate need to neutralize the perpetrator. The Israeli military’s (IDF) “Constant Push for Contact” is one of its most important maxims. Although it is a military tactic, this philosophy is easily applied to civilian law enforcement ¬- one that many civilian police regulations may lack. It is the understanding that once it is realized that a situation is “Active Killer”, every second that is wasted on other actions can and will cost lives.


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Procedureis Confusing

When we look at the actions of the players in the bulldozer event, the doc-trines become clear. The off-duty sol-dier, fresh out of special-forces basic training, apparently had no hesitation in his decision to shoot the terrorist in the head. The policeman “S”, an Israeli Arab who did not serve in the IDF, and who checked the terrorist after he believed he was neutralized, was one of the few Israeli Policemen who have no military experience and therefore the idea of confirmation of neutralization was not an integral part of his training.

The Special Patrol Unit member “E”, who did have IDF training, and who arrived on the scene towards the end of the event, had nothing else on his mind except neutralizing the threat. In a conversation with “E” after the event, he told the me, that ‘even though I saw the off-duty soldier shoot the terrorist, I, as the policeman trained specifically for interdiction of events like this, had to be sure that the threat was neutralized’.

Police protocol and legal procedure can be confusing, causing many po-licemen to hesitate in the split-second decision-making process. The mili-tary virtue of “Constant Push for Con-tact” means using all means necessary in order to come into contact with the perpetrator as soon as possible and to neutralize him. This means that ac-tions taken may have less regard for injured civilians, injured colleagues or personal security, issues of which all three are fundamental to police training. This protocol dictates that, a police officer, sworn to protect the public, may have to jump into the line of fire without backup, coordination with other officers, or proper tacti-cal gear. Confirmation of Neutralization vs Confirmationof Death During my military service in the IDF it was still called a “Kill-shot”. By the time I joined the Israel Police, it had been changed to confirmation of neutralization. This was a correct decision because although the easiest way to confirm neutralization was a point-blank head-shot, it was in some instances unnecessary. The argument is that

the price of finding out what is indeed enough may prove to be too high.

According to this protocol the Police-man “S” who climbed up onto the cab of the bulldozer and decided not to confirm neutralization was justi-fied in his actions even though the killing continued afterwards. From my experience as an Israeli police of-ficer, there is a possibility that if “S” did reconfirm neutralization, there may have been pressure from certain rights groups to press charges. This is and will continue to be a burden that law enforcement and armed civilians will bear when encountering deadly situations and deciding to face pos-sible legal ramifications as a result of neutralizing the terror threat.

The issue of Confirmation of Neutral-ization in Israel has always been an explosive issue (no pun intended). The most well-known event in Israel was the decision made by then Jerusalem District Chief of Police Mickey Levy in March 2002. Levy, who was not at the site of the event, gave the order to shoot a suicide bomber in the head over the two-way radio.

This act sounds obvious until you add the fact that the bomber was handcuffed and on his knees. Levy’s decision making process has been the theme for many of his public speaking engagements about leadership and decision-making. The March 2002 suicide bomber had a large explosive device strapped to his body with the detention switch on his stomach. After he was hand-cuffed he continued to dance and try to fall down in order to operate the bomb and most likely kill the policemen who were attempting to hold him.

Another shooting attack in downtown Jerusalem only two months before that event was a textbook case example of the need to confirm neutralization and to continuously reassess the situation. On January 21, 2002 a lone gunman with an M-16 opened fire on civilians waiting for a bus on busy Jaffa Road. It was a period of many attacks in Israel and especially in the capital, so there was a police presence in the area.

An undercover officer returned fire and pushed him back into an alley way while an off-duty Special Patrol Unit policeman cut him off on the other side of the alley. A close range firefight ensued with the terrorist be-

ing hit 4 times in the chest. When the on-duty Special Patrol Unit arrived, two officers with tactical scopes aimed at the terrorists head, and waited. He was still alive, and had the M-16 still in his grip with his finger on the trig-ger. They saw the subject repeating something to himself, most likely something from the Koran. He then pulled the trigger getting off six more rounds before both officers double-tapped their AR-15s to his head.

After this, within the patrol unit an argument ensued whether the gunman was still a threat before he shot those final rounds – he still had the weapon and the intent. What would have been the consensus if one of the officers had been injured or killed by those last six rounds? Most likely the question, “Why didn’t they finish the job?”

The final example of the importance of confirmation of neutralization was the Dimona attack from March of this year. Two suicide Bombers arrived at an outside shopping center, the first one detonating himself, killing himself and one other civilian, and injuring 10 others, one of which was the second bomber. First responders arrived at the scene to give first aid and while checking one of the casual-ties, it was discovered that he was the second bomber. The first responders yelled for everyone to get away. The first police officer on the scene saw that the second bomber was lying on the ground attempting to operate the switch; he knelt down and fired 4 shots killing him. His actions saved the other injured civilians that were still in the scene of the attack.

As I am writing this, another Jerusa-lem bulldozer attack has been reported in the news. This bulldozer attack, on King David Road in Jerusalem was the second of its kind in three weeks. This time the attack was cut short by the quick and decisive actions of a civilian and a Border Patrol Police Officer. The attacking driver was once again from East Jerusalem, in village of Um Tuba. He too carried an Identification card allowing him free movement about the country.

In this attack no one was killed and there were fewer people injured thanks to the clear and now obvious outcome needed to end the attack. Although the shooters acted quicker, the driver had also applied lessons he had learned by upgrading his security. He had closed and locked the doors to the cab. As we

see, lessons were learned and applied on both sides. Apparently the first bulldozer attack received some poetic applause from some Arab media seeing the bulldozer as a symbol of occupa-tion, and the “poor mans tank”. This type of justification was used with the airplanes of the 9/11 attack called “the poor man’s missiles”.

Conclusion

The decision to take another’s life is often not an easy one. Every officer, soldier, and security professional usu-ally imagines a classic shooter where the threat is obvious, imminent, with weapon and intent. But this is the easy case; instinct does the job for us.

When one of those components is missing, we start to second guess our instinct. While this is a good thing and keeps many innocent people alive, it is important that the second guess does not take more than what it is – a second. Any more than that and we may be threatening other innocent civilians. The best way to keep that second guess or decision making process as short as possible is to study these types of events.

Case studies of most shootings exist, but that is not enough. We must put ourselves in the intervening shooter’s shoes, and then change some of the components to see how the thought process flows. We used to make these situations come to life by creat-ing nearly impossible situations in a classroom, range, or briefing room. In many of our briefings we would let someone else in the unit bring up an idea for a terror attack and others would give ideas on how we would neutralize the threat.

There is a saying in Hebrew, “The reality of it... goes beyond all imagi-nation”. We would be told by our commanders, “The attacker uses his imagination to plan an attack; use your imagination, your resourcefulness to counter it, and do it quick- that is the only way you can beat them!”

About the Author Dov Zwerling is the Tactical Director and an Intelligence

Coordinator at the Institute of Terrorism Research and

Response (ITRR). He served in the Israel Defense Forces

and in the Jerusalem Special Patrol Unit- Rapid Response

Team. Mr. Zwerling has hands-on experience at scores

of terror attacks and is an expert in issues of

terrorism response, a topic on which he has

lectured on around the world.

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Iacsp Bulldozer