Our Story

Dave Shearman Founder/CEO & LEP

CEO’s Corner

In 2010, I was recruited to work in Afghanistan in support of the U.S. Army, specifically as a Law Enforcement Professional. I subsequently worked under-cover in a sub-program called the Investigative Surveillance Unit (ISU) whose mission was to Identify, Infiltrate, Disrupt, and Dismantle the Insurgency and the IED threat it posed.

I completed my tour and returned again to Afghanistan in 2017. The experience, in total, changed my life. I worked alongside some of the most amazing and accomplished men I had ever met. They were men who came from all walks of life and from many different law enforcement agencies throughout the U.S.

We were all different but each of us had one thing in common; a yearning, a deep burning desire to serve our country, no matter when, or where, or at what cost.

In 2018, my good friend and fellow LEP, JT Taman, and I wrote a book memorializing the LEP experience. It is called “Outside The Wire In Blue.” The book attempted to tell the unique story of the LEPS and the LEP Program. Below is an excerpt from the book that describes the birth of the DOD Law Enforcement Professional Program – our history.

“Born out of the fierce fighting experienced in Fallujah, Iraq and the devastatingly effective new weapon—the Improvised Explosive Device (IED) used by Al Qaeda-Iraq (AQI)—U.S. Army and Marine Corps leaders recognized that contemporary tactics and strategies were ineffective against an insurgency that acted more like thugs and criminals than a regular fighting force. The question that plagued these leaders was who within their arsenal of warriors understood organized crime, the mindset of street criminals, and the tactics and techniques of gangs? The solution was not found within the DOD. It was found in their brothers in blue, the American policeman. Thus, in 2006, at the direction of the Department of Defense (DOD), the Law Enforcement Professional Program (LEP-P) was established by the aptly named Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO). The mission of the LEP Program was to obtain and employ police officers and federal agents from across the U.S. who had a minimum of twenty years of criminal enterprise investigative and analytical skills and embed them at corps, division and brigade/regiment levels in Iraq and Afghanistan. The unique skill sets of the American police officer was being called upon to assist the U.S. Army and Marines Corps to more effectively understand, identify, penetrate, interdict, and suppress the insurgent organizations. In 2007, the program transitioned from JIEDDO to United States Army Criminal Investigation Division Command (USACIDC) whereby this highly unusual and extremely unconventional project began to quietly recruit veteran police officers from across the country and place them smack dab on the front lines on the War on Terror. These street-hardened cops, LEPS as they became known, who had already fought crime and done their time on the mean streets of America, laced up their combat boots, left retirement behind and joined the ranks as Staff Advisors and so much more in the COIN fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although they were still civilians, these LEPS were outfitted as soldiers and treated as such. They ate, slept, laughed, cried, and when necessary, fought and died alongside our country’s finest warriors.”

For years, I have known the value and capabilities of individual LEPS and I have also known how effective and powerful a group of LEPS can be in support of U.S. National interests.

In 2020, the LEP Program came to a close after being one of the most successful DOD programs of its type.

But the men who were LEPs, are still out there.

I formed LEPCO Solutions Group to harness the power of individual LEPS and to project that power in support of U.S. national interests as a government contract company.

I also founded LEPCO to continue the legacy of the LEP Program and to honor the sacrifices of the men who paid the ultimate sacrifice while serving as Law Enforcement Professionals overseas.

Now you know our story, our history, who we are.

LEPCO LEPS will deploy anytime, anywhere, and under any circumstances in support of democracy worldwide.

Dave