L.A. tightens security after New York's terrorism alert

The report of a threat of terrorist violence against the New York transit system has prompted Los Angeles officials to increase security. Details from City News Service:

Local mass transit routes will be under extra security through the holidays, especially after a report of a possible Al Qaeda terrorist threat to New York City’s transit systems, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Although security hadn’t necessarily been beefed up, it would be deployed specifically to guard against any possible terrorist activities during the holiday season, said Metro spokesman Rick Jager.

“They’re absolutely aware of (the threat in New York),” Jager said.

Details of the security deployment were not made available. Metro contracts for security services with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, which today contacted the Los Angeles Police Department’s anti-terrorism unit for assistance, Jager said.

--Shelby Grad

Comments

[L.A. Transit Taker]

Hello? In the LA subways, there is never any sort of employee there, let alone one that could do anything in an emergency. And the trains have only a driver and no one else. I have seen stuff go down on the LA subway and commuter trains, and it just happens and no one does anything. I have seen gang guys run around hitting people on the train, while nothing happens.

Threats should be taken seriously. Someone I know saw (in a different major metro area outside of NYC of LA) what looked to be a group of men rehearsing an attack -- unfamiliar set of "matching" me boarding the train, coordinated getting on, dispersing through train, remaining in position. This was a couple years before the Madrid attacks. The person called the FBI when it happened, and after the Madrid attacks, the FBI got serious about what was seen.

I take public transportation always and in every city. Don't be fearful, just be smart. Cell phones do not work in subways, and there is no easy, feasible, reliable way to contact any emergency help -- and no help is prepared to respond rapidly without a lot of gab, stalling, etc.

The people that ride these trains every day are the most likely to spot unusual behavior -- and then what?

MY ADVICE IS THIS: If you see a group of matching people board the train and disperse themselves, and if you see them get off the train -- then YOU get off, too! Why? Because it means the train is about to blow up.

You won't have time to locate some sort of emergency call button, listen to some mope talking over a loud intercom ask a million questions about your suspicions of some guy standing three feet away from you, wait for this mope to contact the driver, wait for the driver to stop the train, wait twenty minutes for a couple hostile, inexperienced sheriff's department cops to show up, etc.

Just get off the train if you think you are in danger. You won't save the world but you might just save yourself.

[Nirv]

Not to give the terrorists any new ideas, but they are undermining their own cause if they're targeting mass transit. If they really want us out of their backyard in the Middle East, then they should be targeting freeways and SUV factories. This would then drive people to use mass transit, since the freeways will be unusable; it will cut the use of personal automobiles and SUVs for commuting, and thus cut our oil consumption and wean us off of Middle East oil and our thirst for gasoline in general.

Well, what can I say, the terrorists are idiots.

[armando sandoval]

No war against terrorists in a country where they carry on their insolital deeds willl do much because that, the nothing else to do devils, is their only way of feeling worthy of life, with no work to gain salaries, no human recognition of what is required to be a human being helping the world. My idea is that somehow if the US can achieve a treated with those covermentes and leads them into pace of development (if they understand it) where economics, education, participation in the nations well being is achieved, that would be a desiarible solution to the problem. How to do this inverosimil accomplishment? There must be intellligent, philosophical, good willing people in our goverment to
do something like this,
.

[Dr. Dave]

Sheesh! Sounds like a case of L.A. terror envy.

[Dr. Dave]

Sheesh! Sounds like a case of L.A. terror envy.