Skip to main content
University of Nebraska Omaha logo University of Nebraska Omaha
APPLY MY UNO DIRECTORY

Students Faculty Staff Community
University of Nebraska Omaha logo
A U.S. Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center (NCITE)
APPLY MY UNO DIRECTORY
Students Faculty Staff Community
  • About Backback to Main menu
    • We Are NCITE
    • Newsletters
    • Our Community
    • Center Directory
  • Research Backback to Main menu
    • NCITE Research
    • Published Reports
    • Annual Request for Proposals
  • News Backback to Main menu
    • News Center
    • NCITE in the News
  • Events Backback to Main menu
    • Upcoming Events
    • ENVISION Conference
  • Get Involved Backback to Main menu
    • Donate to NCITE
    • Job Opportunities
  • Podcast
  1. UNO
  2. National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center (NCITE)
  3. news
  4. 2023
  5. 06
  6. Threat assessment, Nebraska-style: NTER visits NCITE

Threat assessment, Nebraska-style: NTER visits NCITE

A team from the National Threat Evaluation and Reporting (NTER) Office visited NCITE this summer to share capabilities and challenges. And to get a taste of gameday at Memorial Stadium.

  • published: 2023/06/28
  • contact: NCITE Communications
  • email: ncite@unomaha.edu
  • search keywords:
  • threat assessment
  • nter
  • ncite
  • suspicious activity reporting
A group of about 10 people pose for a photo in the endzone of Memorial Stadium. A photographer stands in front of them.

Representatives from NTER and NCITE pose for a group photo at Memorial Stadium. The NTER team visited with NCITE experts in Omaha and Lincoln this summer.

A group of 14 people pose for a photo in the end zone of Memorial Stadium.

Teams from NCITE and NTER pose for a photo in the end zone at Lincoln's Memorial Stadium.

Tin Nguyen watches as Mario Scalora explains security procedures at Memorial Stadium.

NCITE senior research associate Tin Nguyen watches as threat assessment expert Mario Scalora outlines security procedures in Memorial Stadium.

LINCOLN — All was quiet at Memorial Stadium.

On a warm day this summer, a group of out-of-town visitors snapped selfies in the end zone while their tour guide attempted to paint a picture of a typical Nebraska gameday. Tens of thousands of screaming fans. Unpredictable weather. Packed parking lots.

This, explained Mario Scalora, is not just college football. It’s midwestern college football.

And that, he said, requires a certain level of vigilance.

This green turf, Scalora said, and the stadium encircling it, “are supposed to be the safest part of Nebraska during those two hours.”

It was a sentiment of special interest to Scalora’s audience – a team of visiting officials from the Department of Homeland Security’s National Threat Evaluation and Reporting Office (NTER).

Melissa Zisler, NTER chief and NCITE board member, had come to Nebraska with two of her lieutenants: Mark Fahmy, program manager of the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) Initiative, and Jennifer Cohen, a psychologist who is helping to develop the Behavioral Threat Assessment Integration team.

The trio toured Memorial Stadium in Lincoln as part of a three-day visit to NCITE to share capabilities — and challenges. NTER is seeking to further its mission of bolstering federal, state, and local capacity to identify and mitigate threats by boosting its own operational research and creating new training and resources for its partners. NTER is looking to leverage NCITE's expertise.

Recognizing concerning behaviors

Launched in 2019, NTER is a relatively new office within DHS that is charged with important, information sharing functions like the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative, which focuses on tips pertaining to terrorism. NTER is also helping partners process tips that may be indicative of targeted violence through behavioral threat assessment and management.

This is a newer area of focus as NTER, like DHS, also works to combat targeted violence, defined in the department’s 2020 public action plan as any incident of violence that implicates homeland security in which a known attacker, regardless of political or ideological motivation, selects a particular target prior to the violent attack. Many mass shootings fall into this category.

That’s why behavioral threat assessment is critical.

We need people to understand, recognize what these suspicious activities are and to report them to authorities who have the expertise to evaluate and act on them to prevent violence from occurring.

 Erin Kearns, NCITE head of prevention research initiatives

Because many perpetrators have no preexisting profile but may exhibit concerning behaviors, such as fixation on prior attacks and unusual acquisition of weapons and expertise, NTER has launched an instructor development program for public sector partners, such as law enforcement and school safety personnel, in which applicants get certified as “master trainers” to teach interdisciplinary teams how to assess concerning behaviors and decide on action while protecting civil rights and civil liberties. NTER's Master Trainers then help teach community members how to identify concerning behaviors, emphasizing the importance of reporting those behaviors to keep their communities safe.

The program is so popular there is a wait list. At a recent address in Las Vegas, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas praised the program for training over 200 trainers, who themselves have trained over 7,000 people in this specific set of techniques to identify, report, and assess threats.

Overcoming challenges together

NTER faces some institutional hurdles within DHS. It’s a small office, housed within the larger Intelligence & Analysis (I&A) component, which can make NTER seem invisible to colleagues. Differing Congressional authorities within DHS and differing views of NTER’s roles in intelligence sharing and prevention are a challenge. NTER is tasked with demonstrating that its efforts work, something inherently difficult when it comes to any prevention-oriented activity.

That said, NTER has embarked on ambitious goals to update law enforcement training videos and 16 behavioral indicators for suspicious activities associated with terrorism. NTER has formed an executive steering committee to refresh its Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative efforts. Members include prominent law enforcement organizations. And it’s working on a dashboard to better track SAR information.

NTER has already tapped NCITE to help — Scalora, a clinical psychologist and director of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Public Policy Center, has proposed a research project analyzing Suspicious Activity Reports received by state fusion centers. Scalora’s proposal aims to help identify factors that could prevent an attack.

nter-windows.jpg

As a nationally recognized expert in threat assessment, Scalora is well-positioned to contribute to the safety of a Husker gameday. As he explained to his NTER audience at Memorial Stadium, he and his team work with law enforcement and athletics officials to survey the crowd for suspicious activity, keeping a close eye on high-profile, high-traffic areas.

“We’re looking for friction points,” Scalora said. “We try to teach every employee (at the stadium), if you see something, say something.”

Erin Kearns, a criminologist on faculty at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and NCITE head of prevention research initiatives, said NCITE's subject matter experts, like Scalora, can address various NTER goals, such as improving public awareness of suspicious activity and individual threat assessment, and improving cohesion among teams that receive and analyze threats.

“We need people to understand, recognize what these suspicious activities are and to report them to authorities who have the expertise to evaluate and act on them to prevent violence from occurring,” Kearns said.

Committed to the mission

Zisler and her colleagues shared passion about NTER’s mission: to help mitigate threats of terrorism and targeted violence by giving federal, state, and local partners tools and resources.

“We want to get in front of problems, to see if there are ways to help stop potential violence,” said Cohen, whose years treating clients at the Veterans Health Administration put her in close contact with people who were grappling with traumatic experiences. It was then she sought a professional change to see if she could help more from a prevention standpoint and help get people off the pathway to violence.

Fahmy, who joined NTER four years ago beginning with an internship at DHS, comes from a family whose ethos is to serve the government. His parents and siblings all work for various federal agencies.

For his part, Fahmy “found my voice” at NTER.

Zisler, who had worked for DHS previously in border security analysis, was tapped in 2020 to go to NTER. She has her doctorate in conflict analysis and resolution, which makes her uniquely positioned to manage the complexities of the mission-critical office of NTER.

“What we’re looking to do is help our partners adapt to an evolving threat environment,” she said. “The more we can do as a department and within NTER to help our partners mitigate some of these threats, and offramp individuals from the pathway to violence, the safer our communities will be.”

News Sections

  • National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center (NCITE) News Center
  • UNO News Center
  • Maverick Daily
  • The Bullseye
  • Campus Events

Featured

  • NCITE Insights No. 32 – Old Threats and New: ISIS and 764
  • NEW NCITE RESEARCH: ISIS Cases in the U.S.
  • NCITE Insights No. 31 – Reflecting on the Oklahoma City Bombing 30 Years Later
  • NCITE Insights No. 30 – Student Spotlight: I-O Psychology Conference

National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center (NCITE)

Connect with NCITE
  • 6001 Dodge St.
  • Omaha, NE
  • ncite@unomaha.edu
Social media
Our DHS Partners
  • Centers of Excellence
  • Science & Technology Directorate (S&T)
  • Office of University Programs (OUP)

Next Steps

  • Visit UNO
  • Request Information
  • Apply for Admission
  • The UNO Advantage
  • Our City (Omaha)

Just For You

  • Future Students
  • Current Students
  • Work at UNO
  • Faculty and Staff
  • A-Z List

Popular Services and Resources

  • my.unomaha.edu
  • Academic Calendar
  • Campus Buildings & Maps
  • Library
  • Pay Your Bill
  • Course Catalogs
  • Internships & Career Development
  • The Maverick Store
  • MavCARD Services
  • Military-Connected Resource Center
  • Speech Center
  • Writing Center
  • Human Resources
  • Center for Faculty Excellence

Affiliates

  • University of Nebraska System
  • NU Foundation
  • Buffett Early Childhood Institute
  • Daugherty Water for Food Institute
  • National Strategic Research Institute
  • Peter Kiewit Institute
  • Rural Prosperity Nebraska
  1. University Policies
  2. Privacy Statement
  3. Accessibility
  1. 402.554.2800

University of Nebraska Omaha
University of Nebraska Omaha, 6001 Dodge Street, Omaha, NE, 68182
  • ©  
  • Emergency Information Alert
  • MavsReport

Social Media


Omaha Skyline

Our Campus. Otherwise Known as Omaha.

The University of Nebraska does not discriminate based on race, color, ethnicity, national origin, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, disability, age, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, and/or political affiliation in its education programs or activities, including admissions and employment. The University prohibits any form of retaliation taken against anyone for reporting discrimination, harassment, or retaliation for otherwise engaging in protected activity. Read the full statement.