![]() Bodyguards with President Ronald Reagan moments before he was shot in March 1981 | |
Occupation | |
---|---|
Names | Close protection officer, executive protection agent, personal protection specialist |
Occupation type | Government employment or private employment |
Activity sectors | Law enforcement, Government, Military, Security |
Description | |
Related jobs | Security guard, law enforcement officer, anti-terrorism specialist, intelligence officer |
A bodyguard (or close protection officer/operative) is a type of security guard, government law enforcement officer, or servicemember who protects an important person or group of people, such as high-ranking public officials, wealthy businesspeople, and celebrities, from harm. The personnel team that protects a VIP is often referred to as the VIP's security detail.
Most important public figures, such as heads of state, heads of government, and governors are protected by a team of bodyguards from a government agency, security forces, or police forces. Less-important public figures, or those with lower risk profiles, may be accompanied by a single bodyguard who doubles as a driver.
Roles
![](Https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5f/United_States_President_Barack_Obama_with_Senator_Sherrod_Brown%2C_Representative_Mary_Jo_Kilroy%2C_and_Secret_Service_personnel_arriving_at_Port_Columbus_International_Airport.jpg/220px-thumbnail.jpg)
![](Https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5b/Posse_Dilma_2010_5.jpg/220px-Posse_Dilma_2010_5.jpg)
![](Https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d7/Quanell_X_bodyguards.jpg/220px-Quanell_X_bodyguards.jpg)
![](Https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f3/Personenschuetzer.jpg/170px-Personenschuetzer.jpg)
![](Https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8c/Portrait_of_the_Imperial_Bodyguard_Zhanyinbao.jpg/220px-Portrait_of_the_Imperial_Bodyguard_Zhanyinbao.jpg)
![](Https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Cossaks_Imperator_Bodyguard.jpg/220px-Cossaks_Imperator_Bodyguard.jpg)
![](Https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/Kuniyoshi_Imperial_Bodyguard_Fighting_with_a_Demon.jpg/220px-Kuniyoshi_Imperial_Bodyguard_Fighting_with_a_Demon.jpg)
Unlike depictions in popular culture, such as the 2018 British television series Bodyguard (2018), bodyguards are rarely involved in dramatic firefights.[1] Instead, a bodyguard's work consists mainly of planning routes, pre-searching rooms and buildings where the client will be visiting, researching the background of people that will have contact with the client, searching vehicles, and attentively escorting the client on their day-to-day activities.[2] In the event of an emergency, a bodyguard's priority will always be to evacuate their client, not engage with threats.[1]
Osama bin Laden's personal security detail consisted of "bodyguards...personally selected by him." Their "arsenal included SAM-7 and Stinger missiles, AK-47s, RPGs, and PK machine guns."[3]
See also
- List of bodyguards
- List of protective service agencies
- Private investigator
- Private military company
- Secret service
- Security detail
- Security police—persons who guard government property.
- Royal guards
- Republican guard
- Witness protection
- Counterterrorism
- Tactics and skills
- Security company
- Regulation of private security guards
- fr:Conseil national des activités privées de sécurité (French regulator)
- Security Industry Authority (UK regulator)
- Particular units or kinds
- Housecarls (medieval Scandinavia and Anglo-Saxon England)
- Antrustion, the bodyguards of the Merovingian kings
- Praetorian Guard, the bodyguards of the Roman Emperors
- Rynda, ceremonial bodyguard of early Russian tsars
- Somatophylakes, the Macedonian bodyguard of Alexander the Great
- Spatharios, the bodyguard of Byzantine emperors
- Yojimbo, the Japanese word for bodyguard
- Pontifical Swiss Guard
- United Kingdom
- United States
- India
- National Security Guards (NSG) of the Ministry of Home Affairs (India), responsible for protecting Prime Minister
- Special Protection Group (SPG), Indian specialized unit created after the Indira Gandhi assassination in 1984.
- President's Bodyguards, mechanized regiment of the Indian Army that is the ceremonial bodyguard of the President of India.
References
- ^ a b Turk, Victoria. "How realistic is Bodyguard? A real Personal Protection Officer tells all". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2024-04-04.
- ^ "What's it like being a bodyguard?". BBC. April 4, 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-04.
- ^ Soufan, Ali. The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda. W.W. Norton and Company. New York and London: 2011.Page 325