3 hours on trains and no searches
The New York Daily News
By ELVA RAMIREZ
DAILY NEWS WRITER
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/353655p-301553c.html
News reporter Elva Ramirez walks past police officers at Times Square
station yesterday.
Six trains plus one stroller minus a baby added up to zero searches
yesterday on the subway.
To test the heightened police presence and random searches of riders in
the city's vast subway system, the Daily News spent three hours riding
the rails with a baby carriage.
The $16 Kmart stroller was apple green with tiny Winnie the Pooh
characters peeking out from a gingham print. It carried two shopping bags and
a blue-and-white shoulder purse. But no toddler.
A day earlier, FBI and NYPD officials had warned New Yorkers of a
terrorist plot to strike the subways with bomb-laden baby carriages and
briefcases.
Yet, I wasn't stopped - and it seemed like I was hardly even noticed.
I started at Penn Station, taking the No. 1 train uptown. Never having
pushed a stroller into a subway station, I had to ask a Transit
Authority worker how to get past the turnstiles.
I was quickly buzzed through a gate and made my way to the platform,
where a cop nibbled on some Skittles.
I rode the A, L, 6 and 1 trains twice and the Times Square shuttle,
entering through turnstile gates at Grand Central Terminal, Union Square,
Penn Station and City Hall. Cops were at all the stations, but none
were conducting searches when I was there.
At the shuttle, a gaggle of 10 or so officers did not notice my missing
baby. Several straphangers gave the stroller a second look, but no one
spoke up despite Mayor Bloomberg's warning: "If you see something, say
something."
Cops only asked questions when Daily News photographer Matthew Roberts
snapped pictures in the Union Square station. The officers took down
his name and press pass number, and a cop told him: "Everybody's being
pretty vigilant today."
Had it been explosives in that baby stroller and a tragic event were to ensue, I'll bet hundreds of people would call to "witness" they had seen it. Pretty sad people are so self-absorbed and unconcerned about anyone except themselves.
That law enforcement and security ignored the stroller altogether is foreboding of the lack of seriousness with which they tend to possible terrorist threats. That reporter should have been taking down names and numbers and turning them in to Homeland Security. All it will take is one weak link and hundreds if not thousands will perish for that/those person(s) disregard.