When dignitaries enter any location, security and protocol must be tended to first above all else, including visitors and convenience. No matter how many school groups enter at the same time, carrying 100 children a piece, and how angry their chaperones get when they're told to wait, the public must be put on hold to ensure a comfortable and smooth experience for the VIP guest. The particular VIP guest that entered our museum yesterday happened to be the former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich. We were told not an hour before that he would be visiting the museum and fast preparation had to be planned and carried out. As hordes of agents came into the museum leading up to the arrival of Gingrich, school groups and regular visitors had to be tended to last, which was difficult for a staff entirely designed to handle visitors first. We ended up having to bar visitors from entering the main exhibit, creating a surplus of excess students with no place to keep them. The entire lobby and lower level was filled with visitors waiting to enter, and as more visitors joined the line and time passed, our special guest still hadn't arrived. Keeping angry parents and bratty teenagers at bay was the worst part of this whole experience and I, overseeing the lower level, had to call in my CO for backup. Once Mr. Gingrich finally arrived and entered the main exhibit, the only thing left was for us to wait for him to exit. I do not know how much time had passed before he exited the exhibit, but knew he was coming from the large men in suits surrounding the staircase. Mr. Gingrich could be seen right in the middle of his entourage, however if you didn't know who was there, you never would've recognized him. One student on a field trip ran to her school and said that a survivor was walking down the staircase and that was why everyone was stopped and taking pictures. The news spread like wildfire around the school group and beyond, but what they didn't know was that right next to them an actual survivor stood and watched this entire scene unfold.
About ten minutes before Mr. Gingrich came down the steps, I started a conversation with a volunteer also waiting to catch a picture of the Secretary, and we began a discussion about politics. Before I knew it, Rea had told me that she knew all about the power that governments hold. She wouldn't go into much detail, but I did find out that she was from Poland and was very young during the time of the Holocaust, not even being a teenager during the rise of Hitler. However, a survivor none the less, she was a pleasure to talk too. If only these kids had known that not even ten feet away from them was a real survivor open to engage in conversation; me being the only blockade between both parties.
However, safety is not only considered when VIP guests show up at the museum, but from open to closing hours and after. Certain protocols and signals have to be radioed in for special situations: 1080 for a suspicious bag and 1031 for a suspicious person. However, protocols can change when an emergency happens, like when there is a gunman at the Capitol building mere miles down the road.
Yesterday morning as we were welcoming our first arrivals, our supervisor received a call at the group's desk. I had happened to be working groups at that time and saw how his reaction changed from the friendly smile that I know, to a worried frown that I hope to never see again. He pulls me off to the side and tells me that there was a shooting at the Capitol building and multiple people were injured. The last piece of information he shared with me was that they were chasing the gunman down in his car. He told me to be on my guard, but not to tell anyone as to not cause public panic. I spent the next thirty minutes terrified at what might happen if the gunman decided to enter the Museum from his car, as the London incident at Big Ben kept playing in the back of my mind. I saw multiple security officers switch to the front of the museum and our regular bomb sniffing canine was out and about sniffing the trash cans and recycling bins. For visitors just entering, it looked like it was a normal safety check routine, and VS staff did our best to play it off as if nothing was happening. People in the museum already had no idea what was happening outside the museum walls. After a few more minutes. my supervisor returned to update me on the situation. It turned out no one was shot, only an officer was injured by the gunman's vehicle, and that they had caught the guy during the car chase. Knowing all the facts and appreciating the fact that it wasn't as bad as we had thought, the day returned to normal. The bomb dogs came back inside and our security team dispersed. Until Gingrich came later that day.
In the amount of time between hearing the initial news of the shooting and the facts, I have never acted so well in my entire life. Smiling as if I wasn't terrified that we may be next and thinking about all those victims shot. However, we got through it, avoided public panic, and the day continued with no issues. I learned that I must remember where I am, and that with all the history and politics in D.C. comes plenty of targets, either politicians or innocent victims enjoying their visit to the national monuments. One can never put their guard down in a big city.
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