[oceanview]

they had better start taking it more seriously - because telling citizens to "report suspicious people" and call an 800 number, is about 100 times dumber then having the police be watchful and picking out people to search.

[Labyrinthos]

they had better start taking it more seriously - because telling citizens to "report suspicious people" and call an 800 number, is about 100 times dumber then having the police be watchful and picking out people to search.

Something like 3.5 to 4 million passengers ride the NYC mass transit system every work day. Do you really thing that randomly searching (or even selectively searching based upon profiles) a couple thousand people a day is going to discourage a person from blowing up atrain or bus if that is their mission? Get real.

[Sonny M]

they had better start taking it more seriously - because telling citizens to "report suspicious people" and call an 800 number, is about 100 times dumber then having the police be watchful and picking out people to search.

Watch how this turns out.

These guys have been around long enough to know that no matter what they do, this is going to smack them back hard.

NYC wants it cops to be the ultimate PC guys, and take all the blame for everything, and alot of those folks that "report" suspicious people, are usually BS reports that they basically toss out anyway even if it should be credible.

[XJarhead]

is about 100 times dumber then having the police be watchful and picking out people to search.

Maybe so, but the critical legal point is that the cops are not permitted to "pick out people to search." For legal reasons, the search must be random or its unconstitutional.

That's what makes it stupid.