HOUSTON COUNTY: This afternoon Houston County Sheriff Donald Valenza and Houston County Sheriff Lt. Aaron Cohen, Director of Intelligence and Counterterrorism announced proactive operations in use with Houston County Sheriff Department. Let’s be clear, this is a program monitoring active chats about threats, and not an operation invading on someone’s private information.
From studying other violence all over the world, and in today’s technological world there is a lot of chatter on line. The after incident studies of school shooter’s, the attempted assassination’s of President Trump and other suspects who attempted to assassinate or did assassinate have revealed manifesto’s on line of threats.
This unit is not requiring additional staff or equipment.. The threats might not be local and the threat might in other parts of the country. When that is found the information will be passed onto that jurisdiction for follow up.
TRANSCRIPT FROM Houston County Sheriff Lt. Aaron Cohen, Director of Intelligence and Counterterrorism
What we’re standing up here today is a new operational capability inside the Houston County Sheriff’s Office focused on identifying threats earlier—before they reach the point of violence.
The reality is, the threat environment has changed.
Most of these cases don’t start in the street anymore. They start online.
You see behavior. You see escalation. And in many cases, you see what we call leakage—signals that something is building before an incident occurs.
The issue isn’t whether those signals exist. It’s whether they’re identified and acted on early enough.
That’s what this new Intelligence & Counterterrorism Unit is built to do.
Our focus is simple: identify early-stage threat indicators, determine who the individual is, and take appropriate action—whether that’s intervention here or routing that information to the appropriate agency.
Traditionally, law enforcement engages at the point of mobilization—when something is already happening.
What we’re doing is shifting that timeline back.
Operating earlier in the escalation cycle, when there’s still time to disrupt it.
This is what we’re calling an Early Actor Interdiction Capability—the ability to identify, locate, and act on potential threats before they reach the point of violence.
In plain terms, it means getting ahead of problems instead of reacting to them.
One of the most important parts of this process is determining where a threat actually is.
If it’s here, we work it.
If it’s not, we move that information quickly to the agency that needs it.
That speed matters.
Everything we’re doing operates within existing law and policy.
This is focused on publicly available information and lawful investigative processes.
The goal is not surveillance—it’s early identification of credible threats and appropriate response.
In many of these cases, there are warning signs beforehand.
The difference is whether someone sees them—and whether something is done about it.
We’re starting here at HCSO with the goal of strengthening our ability to protect this community, and over time working with partner agencies to ensure credible threats don’t fall through the cracks, regardless of where they originate.
I’ve spent my career working in this space.
And the thing I’m most proud of is building this capability here—at my home agency.
Because this is where it matters most.
The signals are there.
Our job is to see them early—and act on them in time.
Thank you.
