An attack like the one last week on a Paris-bound train could easily happen in the U.S. given current security measures, and a security expert said Americans would likely be unwilling to commit the time and expense needed to fix the problem.
Robert Taylor, founder of the consulting firm Security Services International Associates, said train stations should have similar security measures as airports, making travelers pass through metal detectors and feed their bags through x-ray machines. Absent that, there’s little to stop a similar attack from taking place in the U.S.
“I think it absolutely could happen here. Weapons are more available than they are in a lot of places in Europe,” Taylor said. “If you have a lone wolf type situation, which is happening increasingly around the country, it could be very feasible.”
Three Americans and a British man thwarted an armed gunman in Paris last week who boarded a passenger train with a box cutter, a pistol, an AK-47 and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, officials said.
Ayoub El Khazzani, who was taken into custody for the attack, initially said he was just planning to rob people on the train, but then stopped speaking to investigators when his story unraveled, according to the Associated Press.
“I think the ease of the attack in France proves that they’re vulnerable also, and I don’t think we have any more security measures implanted right now than they do,” Taylor said.
France launched a terrorism investigation into the incident on Tuesday, saying that the gunman had watched a radical Islamic video on his phone just before boarding the Paris-bound train, the Associated Press reported.
The Transportation Security Administration said in a statement that it regularly works with other agencies, including the FBI, to keep all U.S. transportation safe, including the rail system. Part of that includes the use of Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response teams across the U.S. that conducted 14,000 operations in 2014.
“The VIPR program consists of teams of federal air marshals, behavioral detection officers, transportation security specialists-explosives, transportation security inspectors and canine teams who work closely with federal, state and local law enforcement partners and stakeholders in the transportation sectors,” the TSA statement said.
Taylor said that even if the government were to try to increase security on trains, he wasn’t sure the American public would be willing to deal with the delays caused by screening millions of passengers each year who use Amtrak.
“I don’t think the public will accept that at a train station,” he said.
Even given time and financial constraints on implementing new security measures, Taylor said officials could increase the number of these teams monitoring train travelers and place a greater emphasis on team members recognizing threatening or suspicious body language.
