City fields paramilitary teams in subways

New York City fields paramilitary teams in subways, police armed with full-auto rifles as part of “Operation Torch”

They are finally a little more gun-wise in New York City, and as a pilot grant program with the Department of Homeland Security, there is hope the gun-wisdom will spread.

It’s beginning to look a bit like Israel, everywhere you go – on subways, anyway. The first such counter-terror strategy of its kind in the nation deploys roving teams of paramilitary police and bomb-sniffing dogs, beginning next month.

Under a tactical plan called Operation Torch, the officers will board trains and patrol platforms, focusing on sites like Pennsylvania Station, Herald Square, Columbus Circle, Rockefeller Center and Times Square in Manhattan, and Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn.

Officials said the operation would begin in March.

Financing for the program will be funneled to the Police Department and will come from a pool of up to $30 million taken from $153.2 million in new federal transit grants to the state.

Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, and Gov. Eliot Spitzer announced the grants at a news conference on Friday at Grand Central Terminal, where Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly outlined his plans to add a layer of security to the city’s 24-hour transit system.

Mr. Kelly’s plan to heighten security and monitor a subway system that carries nearly five million people a day along 656 miles of tracks reflects the city’s continuing concerns about a possible attack.

Regular police patrols increased following 9-11, but the armament strategy remained “so September 10” – with NRTA [Not Ready for Terrorist Attack] weapons like revolvers.

They concentrated on high-valued targets such as entrances to New York City’s 16 underwater tunnels and on rail systems a recurrent target theme of Islamist Muslims around the world. 

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