The New York Police Department established the SHIELD program after the 2001 September 11th attacks. Numerous US Police Departments set up a SHIELD network of their own over the years.
The Antwerp Police Department decided to implement the program on September 24th 2018 with the full support of the NYPD, one of the benefits of the Memorandum of Understanding between our two Law Enforcement Agencies, signed in 2015.
SHIELD is a public-private partnership based on providing best practices, lessons learned, counterterrorism training opportunities and information sharing. SHIELD seeks to partner with private sector security managers with the goal of protecting Antwerp from terrorist attacks.
With the number of Police Deparments joining the SHIELD network growing each year, a Global SHIELD Network was established. Publications, reports and analyses are shared amongst the SHIELD agencies and members. The Global SHIELD Network coordinates meetings with the project managers of all participating Law Enforcement Agencies.
The Antwerp Police Department was the first police force to set up a SHIELD-program outside of the United Staes and recently accepted the challenge to promote SHIELD within Europe. The Basque Police Department Ertzaintza, a MOU partner of the APD, already confirmed her participation and will officially launch in 2020.
Thanks to the Global SHIELD Network, an additional network is created between Law Enforcement Agencies. They interact in their own way with their own members. Thanks to the network, information can be shared and it is possible to extract useful information for Antwerp and share it with the Antwerp SHIELD members.
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