Teams from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Boston, the U.S. Coast Guard, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) partnered to engage in a large-scale, Maritime Active Shooter Exercise May 21, led by the Massachusetts State Police that took place midstream on vessels sailing through Boston Harbor in Massachusetts.
The complex, multi-partner exercise was the culmination of a year-long series of maritime missions, training, and planning efforts that included specially-trained team members from HSI Boston’s Special Response Team (SRT), the U.S. Coast Guard, CBP’s SRT led by the Massachusetts State Police’s Special Tactical Operations (STOP) Team.
The training exercise was designed to test the response and reactions of partners to a scenario involving a bomb-laden suspect carrying a firearm who threatened to detonate explosive devices on board a commercial cruise ship liner as it transited through Boston Harbor.
As the exercise progressed, expertly-trained members of HSI Boston’s SRT, and the Massachusetts STOP Team jointly boarded the Fort Independence “cruise ship” midstream from emergency response vessels alongside the ship in the harbor.
