By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
FBI agents who undergo months-long training at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., undergo target practice and training for surveillance and self-defense.
But one of the newest exercises involves FBI agents in training to take a trip to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial.
The trainees, dressed in plainclothes, were told to pick the most inspirational MLK quote etched into the stone slabs of the memorial and then discuss it, the Los Angeles Times reports.
The point of the exercise is to show the FBI’s questionable investigations into King, which included racially motivated wiretapping and harassment.
FBI trainees receive other forms of cultural-sensitivity training, including visiting the National Holocaust Museum.
“We wanted to provide a lesson of what happens when power is abused and the responsibility that comes with being in the FBI,” said Cynthia DeWitte, a curriculum manager at the FBI academy. “We wanted this to be more than a field trip.”
