Officials worry over NYC subway threats : Lone Star Times

Officials worry over NYC subway threats

by Matt Bramanti · 10/06/2005 4:42 pm

The Big Apple might be in trouble:

The New York City Police Department is investigating what it deems a credible tip that 19 operatives have been deployed to New York to place bombs in the subway, and security in the subways will be increased, sources told ABC News.

While the police department is taking the threat seriously, it is also urging the public not to be alarmed because – while the source is credible – the information has not been verified.

According to sources in intelligence, emergency services and police headquarters, when three Iraqi insurgents were arrested several days ago during a raid by a joint FBI-CIA team, one of those caught disclosed the threat. Because it slipped out during the arrest, the plot was deemed credible.

This comes just a week after New York transit officials turned down a federal offer of funding for more police dogs:

The Department of Homeland Security is spending $2.7 million to provide 30 bomb-sniffing dogs, along with training for their police handlers, to 10 transit agencies, including the subway systems in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington.

But New York’s subway system, by far the largest and busiest in the country, is not one of them. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority turned down an invitation to apply for the money, officials said yesterday, because the grant would have come with restrictions that they called cumbersome and because the dogs could have been withdrawn and used elsewhere during a national emergency.

Houston, naturally, doesn’t need dogs, because we have an elite Israeli-trained Metro counterterrorism commando squad.

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Comments

9 Responses to “Officials worry over NYC subway threats”

jeffd on October 6th, 2005 at 4:55 pm

Why these cowardly B******** always got to mess with my city?
squawkbox on October 6th, 2005 at 5:19 pm

Can we profile now Chief?

Nope

From Bloomberg

New York City Subways Placed on Heightened Alert Over Threat

(SNIP) New York police began random bag searches in the subways after the London transit bombings that killed 56 people on July 7 and a botched second wave of terrorist attacks there July 21.

The list of stations where inspections are conducted changes day to day. When the searches began, Kelly said officers would search the bags of “every certain number of people,” and wouldn’t conduct racial profiling.
Frank Castle on October 6th, 2005 at 9:24 pm

And yet some Senators who live in the middle of nowhere, with no real targets of opportunities, still siphon off homeland security dollars to their greedy constituents. Meanwhile, places like NYC, DC, Houston, Philadelphia, L.A. and Chicago go with a smaller per capita share for their first responders and seurity than they should. Well, the next time there is a terror threat directed at North, South Dakota and somewhere other than the Mall of America in the midwest please let me know. Someone please tell me.

They play politics with our money. Even the ones that call themselves Republicans. But they aren’t, they aren’t real Republicans. By my estimation Ted Stevens is one of the worst. Half a billion dollars for a couple of bridges. Bridges to service 70-80 people (oh, and he got his son 24 million - $500K of which was used to paint a fish on the side of a plane. Meanwhile, our soldiers don’t have proper body armor, nor are their Humvees up-armored. Meanwhile, New Orleans is still soggy and area cities like Houston have to absorb the evacuees. Great job…
Bear Creek on October 7th, 2005 at 12:17 am

The terrorists or someone are really bringing it back to us here, because they keep us nervous all the time. The news loves to report stuff like this. Will they investigate their credible source in case he lied or is working with the terrorists or is a White House leak?
Certainly it’s easy for cowardly terrorists to attack busy citizens on a work day, which is why England tried to utilize a shoot-on-sight policy.
This is another case where is everyone were armed, we could shoot our own terrorists. Sorry it sounds so cowboy, but that’s what works. It’s a deterrent to cowardly criminals. Sure, there’d be a few cell-phone-road-rage shoot-outs at first, but good riddance to ‘em.
At least New York and most cities have real mass transit, whereas here in Houston we have corrupt and incompetent Metro where there’s nothing but a million cars and a few buses. The buses don’t actually start or stop where people live or work, unless you happen to sleep at the park&ride and work downtown, you know, like the Mayor or City Council or the Courts or sports stadiums. Or perhaps you’re an engineer on the multi-million-dollar-train to nowhere!!
Sorry, I’m beginning to hyphen-ventilate.
Rorschach on October 7th, 2005 at 8:19 am

Bomb dogs would be of limited use probably since it would appear that the terrorists have taken to using TATP like thier palestinian nutjob bretheren instead of Nitrate based explosives. all they need is drain cleaner, acetone, and hydrogen peroxide. bomb dogs can’t smell it.
Rorschach on October 7th, 2005 at 8:23 am

like those infamous words spoken about 35 years ago when the speaker was asked about the sounds of all the bombs going off… “Don’t worry, it is just Tet…” or in our case, Ramadan.
gregg on October 7th, 2005 at 9:24 am

Wait a minute. Whenever its Ramadan we have to stop fighting so we dont make the Muslims mad. Why dont they take a break too.

If this bombing in NY happens its time to start kicking Muslims,Arabs and whoever fits the profile out of this country. Close down the Mosques and all references to Islam. You clowns had your chance and its obvious you cant get along with your playmates. Its time to leave.
jimb on October 7th, 2005 at 9:57 am

I am interested in comment 5 - Rorschach, do you know of any reference materials on this? I would have thought that acetone would at least have some odor that dogs could pick up on, but I am no chemist.

I promise, I am not interested in constructing any sort of explosive device…
Rorschach on October 7th, 2005 at 12:39 pm

I posted some on my blog about it a while back. it is the same substance that was used in the london subway bombings which is what I was commenting on at the time. It may have an odor (I’m unsure, but I am led to believe it does not which is what makes it attractive as a terrorist weapon.), but if so, it is not one that bomb sniffing dogs are trained to react to. For that matter the spectrographs that are used at the airport to look for traces of bomb material on the surfaces of bags and stuff are similarly not calibrated to detect it. They are looking for nitrates.

you can see my blog post about it here:

http://redinktexas.blogspot.com/2005/07/how-not-to-build-bomb.html