Lame. Something tells me the cops aren’t going to stop many terrorists this way. OTOH it seems likely that they are going to annoy a lot of people who don’t appreciate this kind of official attention. Reminds me of the police department that was in the news a while back for stopping law-abiding motorists to congratulate them on being good drivers.
I suspect that the new Miami police initiative will not last very long.
Seems like a kinda of “showing the flag” sort of operation.
Given the actual rarity of terrorist attacks I don’t think it will help much though.
I never minded seeing the extra Emergency Services truck by the Brooklyn Bridge or the clump of machine gun toting guardsmen in Grand Central, etc., but to the extent that the Miami cops are needlessly going beyond a simple ‘stand in front of major places with machine guns’ show of force it is a pretty lame and useless exercise of police resources.
It is noteworthy though, for what I’m not sure, to point out that Miami Police Chief John Timoney was one of the chief masterminds of the NYPD’s hugely successful community policing initiatives in the mid to late 90s.
Deputy Police Chief Frank Fernandez said officers might, for example, surround a bank building, check the IDs of everyone going in and out and hand out leaflets about terror threats.
Oh yeah. That’ll make customers want to visit the bank for sure. This governmental scheme is all show and no substance, and it’s needlessly intrusive. It also raises the question why the City is diverting scarce police resources to “random shows of force.”
Hey, it seems to work for the Transportation Security Agency.
Back about 10 years ago the hot new thing in law enforcement was aggressive policing. Put together a group of athletic, highly motivated officers to patrol high-crime areas in unmarked vans. If they came across a crime in progress they’d chase and arrest the perps.
If you think this sounds an awful lot like the Flying Squad of London Metro Police fame, you’re right. It also worked, not least because the officers assigned to this duty got to run around dressed like a ninja (which is fun), and arrest a lot of people who were in the middle of an illegal act (which advanced their career).
Unless there’s something more going on, some overall strategy that isn’t explained in the article, this sounds like a terrible idea. It looks like someone with a surprising lack of imagination decided to use methods geared to get the goods on street hustlers and curb side drug dealers against international terrorists. Something tells me that it isn’t going to work.
James