Video Transcript

Jane Bjornstad, Community Outreach Specialist, Phoenix FBI: Today we’re hosting the Junior Special Agent Program office tour. And when the kids come in they get to spend a little bit of time walking around the office and interviewing the agents and the professional support employees.

The school that we’re working with today is the Arizona Cultural Academy. What we had lined up is we asked them to act as reporters when they’re walking around the office. And so we gave them each of them a pen and a notepad and they were supposed to interview the employees and to find out what they do for the FBI, what they like about their job, what they don’t like about their job, what type of education they have.

Along with that they enjoyed a pizza lunch. And then we took them across the street to learn a little bit about the SWAT team.

Keith Tolhurst: Hi, welcome, my name is Keith Tolhurst. I’m the SWAT team leader for the Division, and what we’re going to talk about a little bit now is our SWAT team. Anybody know what SWAT stands for? SWAT is S-W-A-T. It’s for Special Weapons and Tactics.

So we’re all agents. We all do the same thing that agents do. But what the SWAT team does is we’re responsible for when there’s a more dangerous situation or something where they want a little more firepower, then they ask us to go do it.

Jane Smoudi, Principal, Arizona Cultural Academy: Personally I do feel the more the kids learn the law enforcement, the better they will be good citizens … And they have the chance to see the real agents and ask a few questions. That’s, I believe, it’s my favorite part for today.

Mahleej, Sixth-Grade Student: I knew that they were going to show us that they caught people and stuff like that, but I didn’t know about the different FBIs. There was, like, ones that they caught bank robbers and ones that caught gangs and one that found missing children. All these different types.

Jane Bjornstad: Well, what the the Junior Special Agent Program is designed for fifth- and sixth-graders, and it’s a good way, I believe, for us to get out in the community and teach the kids what the FBI is all about. It’s the first time we’ve worked with the Muslim community with this particular school. We’ve been getting a lot of positive feedback from the school. The kids are very interactive with the agents and professional support employees that I bring there.

They got to see a couple of agents dressed down in their ghillie suit and uh, the Ninja suit, and then now they’re spending some time with the Evidence Response Team learning how to lift fingerprints.

(Sounds of children talking, putting on latex gloves)

Instructor (not shown): And what we’re going to show you real quick is how to lift fingerprints when we actually go out on a crime scene. Now what this will really do for you is when they come to put you on TV, on CSI or something, you’ll already know what to do.

Instructor (not shown): You can just do it along the whole bottle until you start seeing fingerprints.

Student (not shown): I need a piece of tape.

Instructor: Oh, that’s a good fingerprint right there. That’s fantastic.

Instructor: White. Why? Because when you put white on black it shows up really well. So any time you’re going to do a dark-colored object, you’re gonna want to use a light-colored powder.

Kamal, Fifth-Grade Student: The most interesting is what they did. They track down some criminals and sometimes they go out there and arrest them.

Jane Smoudi: Before we learned from FBI plans through the movies thanks to Hollywood, but now it’s got too real to see how the SWAT team, they operate. And the autoshop over here. Myself, yes, I have learned a lot.

Jane Bjornstad: With those lessons that we do give them we hope that they will go back and make good choices in the community and, you know, as they grow older.