Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI Crime News (b)
The model is so effective that other portions of the Bureau have since tried to emulate it, noted Supervisory Special Agent Jake Foiles, who oversees the FBI Kansas City JTTF.
“The FBI’s JTTF model has expanded and evolved and has been copied now by our cyber side, our counterintelligence side, by our traditional criminal side,” he said. “We now have task forces on many of the different squads and areas that the FBI works. And the reason for that is because that task force model is incredibly effective when you have a variety of different people from different agencies and different walks of life and backgrounds working day in and day out, every single day with each other.”
JTTFs are also powerful mechanisms for community outreach, briefing on topics such as what FBI investigations into terrorism matters actually look like, signs that someone might be mobilizing to violence, and why it’s important for Americans to proactively reach out to the FBI if they spot those kinds of indicators.
Ultimately, the FBI will investigate any individual who threatens violence, including those planning to commit an act of violence to further an ideology. (The FBI cannot initiate an investigation based solely on First Amendment-protected activity.)
According to Kansas Bureau of Investigation Director Tony Mattivi, JTTFs are critical in reviewing incoming leads to determine which terrorism threats are substantive. These task forces have an obligation to resolve any real or potential threat they’re aware of “because you never know which one of those is going to turn into a really significant threat,” he said. “And that’s, I think, some of the most important work that’s done on a daily basis inside the JTTF. And nobody sees it.”
Benefits of partnerships
Retired FBI Supervisory Special Agent Dana Kreeger—a veteran of the Kansas City JTTF—said the biggest benefit of JTTF participation is the ability to keep a finger on the pulse of the terrorism threat.
“Terrorism is not a local threat,” he said. “It’s happening all across the country; a lot of it is intertwined. We have threat actors in Kansas City that might be talking to threat actors in Chicago or L.A. or Portland or New York.”