FBI/ODA/USDA Animal/Plant Health Joint Criminal-Epidemiological Investigations Course

May 1-2, 2019

The Animal Plant Health Joint Criminal and Epidemiological Workshop is a two day course facilitated by the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate (WMDD), and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The Workshop will be hosted by the Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA) at their Reynoldsburg, Ohio Campus/Facility.

The Workshop provides joint investigations training to improve efforts to identify and investigate potential overt or covert biological threats to animal and plant health. The interactive course provides training for law enforcement, animal/plant and public health investigators at the local, state, and federal levels. Additionally, the course provides focus on threats to the production agriculture sector, to include livestock, crops, some wildlife, forests, bio-tech R&D, insider threats, and agricultural economic espionage. The Workshop is an effort to help improve local response plans by developing triggers and tripwires, information sharing protocols, and training models for joint investigations between FBI, local law enforcement, animal/plant investigators, public health, emergency responders and the private sector.

Event Details:

• May 1-2, 2019
  8:30 am –5:00 pm
  *Registration begins at 8:00 am
  Ohio Department of Agriculture, Bromfield Building
  8995 E Main St, Reynoldsburg, OH 43068
• Training Cost: FREE
• Tentative Agenda (subject to change):  Click here to download the agenda.

Registration:

To Register, e-mail with name(s), title(s), agency/company, address, phone number and points of contact by 4/25/2019 to: Richard Maier at ramaier@fbi.gov;

About the Training –Training Objectives:

• Understand law enforcement and animal -plant health agency roles, responsibilities, and authorities during an outbreak of an unusual, suspicious,  and/or high consequence animal or plant disease incidents.
• Law enforcement threat assessments, intelligence, and criminal/terrorism investigations.
• Animal/Plant Health (veterinary and plant disease unusual disease incident epidemiological investigations).
• Determine if disease introductions are accidental, natural, or intentional (criminal-terrorism-espionage) incidents.
• Identify assets and capabilities for each discipline.
• Demonstrate types of information collected by law enforcement and animal/plant health experts and how and when to share it.
• Discuss best practices for conducting a joint threat assessment, joint investigations, joint interviews, and evidence collection.
• Develop inter-professional relationships between law enforcement and animal/plant health experts.

Target Audience:

• Agriculture Agencies (Plant & Animal - Local, State and Federal)
• Law Enforcement (Federal, State, Local),
• Public Health (Federal, State, Local),
• Emergency Management, First Responders/EMS/Hazmat, Military,
• Representatives of plant and animal agriculture commodities; large animal veterinary practitioners,
• Anyone who may respond to animal or plant health, safety and Weapons of Mass Destruction emergencies involving animal or plant production.

For more information, please contact:

Dennis Summers, DVM - Assistant State Veterinarian, Ohio Dept. Of Agriculture - Dennis.Summers@agri.ohio.gov; 614-728-6265

Richard Maier -FBI Weapons of Mass Destruction Coordinator (Cincinnati Division)– ramaier@fbi.gov;  513-979-8307

Bryan Seamour – FBI Weapons of Mass Destruction Coordinator (Cleveland Division) – bkseamour@fbi.gov; 419-566-4960

Proudly brought to you by the Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)