police program « Feral Jundi

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Industry Talk: MPRI Contractor Paul Protzenko Killed In Afghanistan

Filed under: Afghanistan,Connecticut,Industry Talk,Law Enforcement — Tags: Afghanistan, death, Industry Talk, KIA, MPRI, MPRI An L3 Company, Paul Protzenko, police program — Matt @ 6:59 PM

Thanks to Ms Sparky for giving the heads up about this. I do not know the cause of death and I am sure that will come out on monday with MPRI’s official statement. Rest in peace to the fallen, and Paul has definitely given all. The police program that companies like MPRI are involved with are incredibly important to the overall strategy in Afghanistan. Contractors like Paul are a crucial part of that, and these trainers have also paid a price. My heart goes out to the family, friends, and company during this time of loss. –Matt

Edit: 07/16/2011- I have yet to see an MPRI official statement on this, and they have made no effort to contact me. The only thing I have found about this incident was this post:

Sunday, July 10, 2011
Retired US Trooper First Class Paul Protzenko died in Afghanistan 9th July 2011 while working for a private contracting firm training Afghan police.
The 47-year-old former Connecticut State Trooper retired in 2009 after 20 years service working for the state police. Prior to that, he had served in the US Army.
At the time of the incident, in Panjshir province, Mr. Protzenko was in a vehicle with US Army Sergeant 1st Class Terryl L. Pasker. An Afghan security officer stopped their vehicle and opened fire. Both men died at the scene. A US soldier in another vehicle shot and killed the Afghan guard.
Link here.

Law enforcement professional Paul Protzenko instructs Afghan national police in community policing skills in Panjshir province, Afghanistan, as part of Task Force Cyclone's Police Mentoring Team made up of the 410th Military Police Company out of Ft. Hood, Texas, and civilians.

Former State Trooper Killed in Afghanistan
Jul 10, 2011
A former Connecticut State Trooper, who retired in 2009, was killed while serving in Afghanistan, working for a private defense firm.
Former Trooper First Class Paul Protzenko, 47, was killed late Friday or early Saturday, according to a spokesperson for Military Professional Resources Inc., the company for which Protzenko was working.
Protzenko’s son Matthew Protzenko, who served in Iraq, said he was notified of this father’s death the day it happened.

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Monday, June 7, 2010

Industry Talk: Two DynCorp Contractors Killed In Afghanistan

Filed under: Afghanistan,Industry Talk — Tags: Afghanistan, CIVPOL, contractors, deaths, DynCorp, Ms Sparky, police program, security contractors — Matt @ 10:48 AM

This just came up on my virtual desk, and this is all that is known about it so far. I do not know the names and there isn’t any chatter on the forums yet. This attack was at the police training center in Kandahar. I will post any edits if anything pops up. Ms Sparky has it up on her blog as well.

Rest in peace to the fallen, and all condolences go out to the friends and families of these brave men. –Matt

Edit: 06/08/2010- Two Killed in Attack on Afghanistan Police Training Facility– An American police mentor and a Nepalese security guard working under DynCorp International’s Afghan police training contract were tragically killed yesterday, when insurgents attacked a police training facility in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Gary W. Willard, 44, of Resaca, Georgia, deployed to Afghanistan as a police mentor on June 22, 2009. Prior to his work in Afghanistan, he was a sergeant with the Calhoun Police Department in Georgia. Earlier, he spent almost ten years with the Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office in Dalton, Georgia. Before his law enforcement career he was a member of the United States Marine Corps.

Hit Bahadur Gurung, 39, of Nepal worked as a security guard at the Kandahar police training facility.

“These men supported the mission in Afghanistan with courage, honor and excellence, and gave their lives in pursuit of a more secure Afghanistan,” says CEO Bill Ballhaus. “We extend our deepest sympathies to their families, loved ones and colleagues.”

Link to release here.

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US Contractor, NATO Troops Killed In Afghanistan

6/7/2010

Two foreign nationals, including a U.S. contractor, were killed on Monday in a suicide-bomb attack by Taliban on a police training camp in southern Afghanistan, reports said.Also on Monday, three soldiers of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) were killed in the country.The U.S. Embassy said an American working for Dyncorp, a U.S. security company, was killed when a suicide-bomber rammed his explosive-laden vehicle into a police training center in the southern city of Kandahar. It did not disclose the nationality of the other person killed.Moments later, an attempt by two other bombers to enter the compound was foiled by security forces who shot them to death, reports quoting a spokesman for the provincial Governor said.

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Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Industry Talk: Audit Hits State Department On Failures To Monitor Iraq Work

Filed under: Industry Talk,Iraq — Tags: contracting officers, Industry Talk, Iraq, police program, security contracting, State Department — Matt @ 12:50 AM

Yet again, how come this does not surprise me? The one part that really stands out about this report, is the fact that they only had one contracting officer to monitor over a billion dollars worth of invoices. I am no expert on contracting officers, but it would seem to me that using just one guy to monitor all of that, is setting this up for failure. And seeing how this is government, I know there are manuals and studies that discuss the proper way to do this. Even so, commonsense would dictate that maybe, just maybe, State should have put some more folks in that department to help out.

It gets better though, because then the new kids on the block who are running DoS, have decided that ‘three’ contracting officers is sufficient to monitor these contracts. Oh, and they lack guidance, which is even more indicative of what is really going on. It takes leadership to make this stuff happen, and if you guys placed good leaders in those offices, increased the benefits and pay for the contracting officer positions, insure everyone has good guidance and training for the task, and properly fund the contracting office at State, you might actually get some good accountability out of the whole deal. State must do a better job about overseeing how tax payer’s money is spent. Anything else is unacceptable.

By the way, David Isenberg has a good article about this latest report here. –Matt

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Audit hits State on failures to monitor Iraq work

January 25, 2010

By RICHARD LARDNER

WASHINGTON (AP) – For nearly $4.5 million a year, the State Department in June assigned a 16-person security detail to protect six U.S. contractors in Iraq who already had a team of hired guards they didn’t really need.

The expensive miscue is one of many described in an audit issued Monday of a $2.5 billion State Department contract with DynCorp International for training Iraq’s police force.

The department repeatedly failed to oversee the contract properly, according to the audit by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. The findings also suggest the department remains ill-equipped to watch over the vast amount of U.S. money flowing into Afghanistan.

“I think they need to act quickly to remedy this long-standing concern,” the special inspector general, Stuart Bowen, said about the State Department’s shortage of people and resources to oversee work done by the private sector.

In comments included in the report, Assistant Secretary of State David Johnson disputed the audit’s central conclusion that weak oversight made the $2.5 billion vulnerable to waste and fraud. Johnson said payments are only made to a contractor after the invoices have been carefully checked.

But the report challenges that assertion.

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