5 surprising things I learned about the FBI

The FBI. What do those letters mean to you?

There's the obvious literal meaning: the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the nation's top federal law enforcement agency.

But given that the FBI has either been glorified or demeaned throughout the years in movies, TV shows and in the news media, no one from the outside can really know what it's like to work for the agency.

So when I was nominated to take part in the eight-week Citizens Academy put on by the Cincinnati office, I jumped at the chance.

The course, held here and at 55 other FBI offices nationwide, is designed to give members of the community and media a chance to really get behind the scenes of the agency. And that was true. We spent three hours every Thursday grilling local agents on what their jobs entail and how they do them. We also got quite a bit of hands-on experience, taking on "bad guys" using paint guns, lifting fingerprints and examining evidence, and even shooting guns agents use.

And while the experience confirmed some things I already thought I knew from working with the FBI professionally as a reporter, there were quite a few surprises for me and the nearly 30 others in my class.

A sample of what I learned:

1) Anti-spying/anti-terrorism is a big deal here

FBI officials asked that the actual number of agents devoted to "counter-intelligence," or catching spies, be withheld. But given we're in a smaller Midwestern city, that number is much larger than one would think.

And here's why. The area is home to one of the largest companies in the world in Procter & Gamble, and currently, spies from China and other countries are not only trying to steal military and intelligence secrets, but trade secrets as well. (And there is plenty of ongoing research at the University of Cincinnati and Ohio State University in Columbus that could be proprietary.)

Add to that the fact that Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is one of the largest in the country and in the Cincinnati office's jurisdiction.

Finally, consider the presence of GE Aviation in Evendale, which makes military jet engines, and you can see why there are so many FBI agents trying to stop spying here.

That same amount of effort goes into trying to catch and stop terrorists and terror attacks in southern Ohio. In the last six months, the Cincinnati office (and its satellite office in Columbus) have arrested two men with either ties to terror groups or for plotting to commit attacks in the area.

The ongoing local efforts were even a surprise to Angela Byers, the new Special Agent In Charge for Cincinnati, who took over in February.

"We have efforts here comparable to what you would think go on in bigger cities," Byers said. "But our efforts in this area have been ramped up across the country at all levels."

2) The truth about the lie detector

There are no surprises in a lie detector test. Surprising, no?

In fact, the agent performing a polygraph will interview a subject for hours before conducting the actual test, and will actually tell the subject what questions he or she is going to ask.

I learned this through personal experience. And I also got a hair-raising example showing me why that is.

The local FBI's head polygraph agent Kevin Gormley used me as a test subject. He chatted me up a bit about my job as a reporter, asking such questions about how I quote people, how interviews are conducted and how long it takes me to write stories. Then he strapped me in, using two bands across my chest and a finger monitor, while my seat and the floor included motion detectors to pick up any squirming.

Then the test began. Gormley asked me to write the number 4 on a dry erase board in front of me. Then he said to answer "no" when he asked if I wrote the numbers 1, 2 or 3. He asked me to lie when he asked if I had written the number 4.

And that's what I did, going all the way to number 6. I thought I was done, but my examiner had one more question for me:

"Have you ever misquoted anyone on purpose?"

I nearly jumped out of my chair and immediately answered "NO!" – telling the truth.

And that blew the baseline of the test out of the water, which was his point. Surprises kill any sense of baseline, although he also showed where the lines spiked when I lied about writing the number 4.

(Although to my credit, one of my classmates noted that while the lines jumped on the quoting question in line with the previous lie, my heart rate did not, showing potentially that I was telling the truth.)

One more surprise from Gormley: Polygraphs are indeed allowed in court sometimes, depending on the circumstances. Not all states allow them, but it's not a nationwide ban.

As an aside, Agent Gormley was the lead investigator on the well-known Erpenbeck scandal involving major banking figures in Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati in the early 2000s. He was the one who dug up more than $250,000 in cash that former homebuilder Bill Erpenbeck had buried at a golf course.

3) The Cincinnati FBI headquarters is "a fortress"

The local FBI headquarters used to be located in a nondescript office building Downtown, but the agency moved to its new facility near Kenwood Mall in February 2012. Any visitor is asked to turn off their phones when they get inside the building, or at least turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

The FBI doesn't actually own the building, which is surrounded by concrete and iron fences and with a security car gate. But the developer did build it to the agency's specifications. It can withstand a blast bigger than the one in Oklahoma City from the parking lot and even includes anti-surveillance and anti-electronic monitoring measures.

"An 18-wheeler couldn't knock down our gates ... we're pretty proud of our fence," Benny Bustamonte, the chief of security for the Cincinnati division, said.

4) No more having their 'asses kicked in gunfights'

The FBI takes its weapons very seriously. And that's a major change over the last two or three decades.

As the FBI's chief local weapons trainer and SWAT squad leader David Britton says "we used to get our asses kicked in gunfights." That's because the agency used to limit its arsenal to revolvers and shotguns. Training only included cotton wads or target shooting. Then there was that massive shootout in Miami in 1986 where two agents were killed and five other wounded trying to take down two heavily armed serial bank robbers.

Subsequent studies blamed the lack of stopping power from the agents' handguns as a major reason why the firefight continued as long as it did, as the suspects were hit multiple times and kept shooting.

Now, they do live or video training against real targets. They carry a lot more firepower, using semi-automatic rifles, sniper rifles, and other high-tech weaponry or equipment (including drones and surveillance robots).

The agency is even in the process of switching handguns after extensive research on the best kind of bullet to use, going from a .40 caliber Glock 22/23 to a new Glock that takes a 9 mm round.

5) The FBI isn't the big, bad Bigfoot anymore

Over the past 15 years, and especially since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the agency has gone out of its way to work better and coordinate more efficiently with all law enforcement agencies, especially those at the local level. This includes creating local anti-terrorism task forces, where local officers are brought in and treated just like FBI agents and even given security clearances.

And that works both ways: The FBI gets better information more quickly about issues on the streets, with Byers citing the ongoing issues with heroin in the area as an example. In the old, more insular days, the FBI may have been slower to respond to try and track larger dealers and traffickers.

"Working with folks like the Cincinnati Police Department gives us an insight on crime, and while they work things that we may not, we can maybe see the big picture," Byers said.

If you want to learn more about the Citizen's Academy, check out the FBI website.