Anti-terror feds to patrol LIRR and Metro-North
BY PETE DONOHUE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, March 21st 2007, 4:00 AM
Federal security officers will board MTA commuter trains in a major anti-terror plan to safeguard more than 500,000 daily Metro-North and LIRR riders, sources said yesterday.
The Transportation Security Administration and the NYPD - as well as state and local police departments - will supplement the patrols of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's own police force, law enforcement and government sources said.
The beefed-up security plan does not appear to be in response to any new or specific threat.
The MTA Police Department, which has one of the largest bomb-sniffing squads in the country, has quietly boosted its visibility onboard trains and in stations with more officers in the past few days.
It has the primary policing responsibility for Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road, the nation's two busiest commuter railroads with a combined 244 stations, and lines stretching to the Hudson Valley, southern Connecticut and eastern Long Island.
Gov. Spitzer's homeland security chief, Michael Balboni, TSA Deputy Administrator Robert Jamison and MTA CEO Elliot Sander are among the officials expected to announce the strategy, which also encompasses the Staten Island Railway, at a news conference in the Bronx today.
Sander recently said he wanted a more visible police presence on the rails and in stations. MTA cops have done limited inspections of passengers' backpacks and briefcases for explosives using various emerging technologies, but the reinforcements will not be used for passenger screening, sources said.
Commuter lines pose a different set of challenges for law enforcement than subways, where trains depart every few minutes and riders can be checked entering stations.
Metro-North and LIRR trains come far less frequently, and most passengers arrive at platforms just in time to board.
The revised and bolstered patrol strategy has been in the works for weeks, one source said.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/03/21/2007-03-21_antiterror_feds_to_patrol_lirr_and_metro.html
placemark
GOOD.
Extra-patrol is always good.
Thanks freeperfromnj for that post.