The Department of Homeland Security recently cut vital counterterrorism funding to Washington and New York, the premier political and financial centers of the United States and therefore the nation’s most-tempting targets. Inexplicablystill listed on a federal database of potential terrorist targets are an Amish popcorn factory, a flea market and a tackle shop, none of which are located in either D.C. or Gotham.
But when Metropolitan Police Chief Charles Ramsey called upon federal law enforcement to help out during the latest “crime emergency” as tourists were being mugged on the National Mall, federal help was slow in coming. The Capitol Hill Police dragged its feet stepping in to assist the patrols. A classified briefing by an FBI task force on the present Mall deployment and its implications for public safety “stunned me,” Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., told The Examiner. And not in a good way.
The long-standing rivalry between federal law enforcement officials and their local counterparts is exacerbated in the Washington area, where overlapping jurisdictional imperatives and resulting turf battles are all too common. But it’s not only the feds who are at fault. The D.C. police department’s new homeland security detail, whose members will receive Top Secret clearances that enable them to access the most sensitive national intelligence databases, will be run by a sergeant with a an oft-expressed grudge against the FBI.
The same Us vs. Them mentality can be found in New York, where trust in the feds is virtually nonexistent. Police Commissioner Ray Kelley is so certain that the CIA and FBI won’t protect his city from another terrorist attack after 19 attempts (two of them successful) since 1990 that he’s started his own counterterrorism command, with some NYPD officers even deployed overseas.
When terrorists bombed trains in Bombay, London and Madrid, NYPD immediately sent its own officers to these locations, relaying intelligence on the suspects and their methods. For example, after discovering that the London subway bombers parked their van several blocks from the targeted station, New York police officers were able to expand their transit surveillance. Tips from NYPD informants have already uncovered — and prevented — several al-Qaida plots
And every single day, 200 officers armed with assault weapons suddenly converge on high-value locations such as the Empire State Building or Times Square. The purpose of these “Hercules” surge drills is twofold: Disrupt ongoing terrorist activity and send the message that New York refuses to be an easy target.
Every city in the country, but especially the District, needs to be this proactive in the war on terror. However, the do-it-my-way New York model is not necessarily the only answer. Since counterterrorism is one of law enforcement’s main missions, critical information gathered by any source should instantly be shared across the law enforcement spectrum. Too often, however, instead of cooperating with each other and passing on what they know, domestic and federal agencies alike continue to hoard information, stiff-arm their counterparts and refuse to do what they must to protect the public, which is work together against a common enemy. In a post Sept. 11 world, such bureaucratic interagency squabbling is not only wasteful, it’s downright dangerous.
