Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deploys canines throughout the L.A. Metro system daily. Pictured is Metro Transit Security Officer Henry Solis and canine officer explosives detection dog, Nakita, at Union Station Metro Red Line station platform.

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deploys canines throughout the L.A. Metro system daily. Pictured is Metro Transit Security Officer Henry Solis and canine officer explosives detection dog, Nakita, at Union Station Metro Red Line station platform.

On May 1, after a U.S. strike team had killed Osama bin Laden, transit agencies nationwide increased their levels of security to prepare for any possible retaliatory attacks and asked the public to look for and report any suspicious activity. While no transit systems reported receiving any threats, agencies kept up continued vigilance following the news.

However, many, including Amtrak and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) had taken precautionary measures long before the news about Bin Laden came to light. Both agencies have conducted more vigilant track inspections, increased outreach to their partners and passengers, upgraded surveillance technology, and beefed up training with help from the local and federal government.

Additionally, Amtrak President Joseph Boardman, pointed out to Congress in May, soon after the news surfaced of threats to the U.S. rail system unearthed from Bin Laden's compound, that both the Federal Rail Administration and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) are aggressively researching additional ways to provide safeguards on the tracks and encouraged Congress to continue to fund those efforts to bring those projects to fruition, according to John O'Connor, chief of police, Amtrak.

More frequent inspections

Amtrak recently stepped up security and increased police canine patrols and track inspections and is working more closely with other enforcement agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, O'Connor, says.

Bag checks, which have long been part of the agency's security practices, are now taking place more frequently and are conducted both independently and in partnership with the TSA, at random as well as in multiple cities on multiple dates.

"You never know if you get on a train in Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia; Baltimore; New York or some other part of the country, [whether] we might be setting up a bag screening operation," O'Connor says.

The agency also upped the frequency of its rail track inspections after specific threats from Al Qaeda, determined in a note recovered in bin Laden's compound that contained plans for derailing trains.

"[Former Defense] Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, one of his famous sayings was, 'You don't know what you don't know.' It's very hard to go out against that," O'Connor says. "In this instance, we do know what we know. [bin Laden] was speaking about derailing a train, so in my perspective we would be remiss if we didn't make sure that our security counter-measures didn't take that threat into consideration."

Track inspection entails making sure that the tracks are not tampered with and are secured in a safe manner. Operators physically inspect the tracks to make sure that someone hasn't tampered with them or placed objects on the tracks that might derail the train. There are a number of safeguards and fail-safes in the normal operation of the trains that make them safe, O'Connor says, but the physical inspections are an extra precaution to ensure the fail-safes are working and no one has tampered with the tracks.

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Amtrak recently increased police canine patrols and is working more closely with other enforcement agencies.

Amtrak recently increased police canine patrols and is working more closely with other enforcement agencies.

Public, partner outreach

Amtrak also is working closely with local, state and federal partners on security projects. Over the past couple of years, the agency has, in cooperation with the New York Police Department (NYPD) and the TSA, developed RailSafe (Regional Alliance Including Local State and Federal Ethics), a program that brings a number of agencies together periodically on a predetermined day, in the morning or afternoon, to perform a "show of strength" meant to reassure the public that collectively they are all watching out and protecting the public riding the rail, O'Connor explains.

These efforts have been coming together more frequently and expanding in scope, O'Connor says, to the point where more than 100 agencies — spanning 25 states as well as several cities in Canada and the District of Columbia — and about 1,000 police officers participated.

"We have now increased the number of RailSafe operations that are being conducted and are incorporating a strategic tactic to also include right-of-way inspections in addition to having officers at stations and onboard trains," O'Connor explains.

Amtrak ran one of its most recent operations in May. It involved 155 agencies in 34 states, including Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Washington, D.C. The initiative involved more than 1,200 officers. The operations are not limited to Amtrak stations, either; out of the 204 train stations involved, 97 of those were train stations for agencies other than Amtrak.

Amtrak hopes effort mitigates the latest potential threat to U.S. rail ­systems.

"You'll be seeing more frequent efforts such as that, both on a large and smaller, more random, unpredictable scale. The idea is to disrupt any pre-planning going on," O'Connor explains.

These operations are considered especially effective, he added, because would-be terrorists have been turned away, or turn away on their own, when they see a uniformed presence or a canine. Even suicide bombers have been known to move on from one target to another when seeing a uniformed police presence.

"Even though they are willing to sacrifice their life, they want to deliver on their purpose. We believe that these outfits have a deterrent effect," O'Connor says.

Another benefit of these operations is that they can be flexible on staffing resources, which is especially helpful when budgets are limited.

"In some cases it's just a matter of leveraging and coordinating available resources, in other cases it does involve adding more patrols and some strain on the budget," O'Connor says.

L.A. Metro's security improvements, many of which were in operation before the threats surfaced, also placed an emphasis on public outreach.

"We had the capabilities in place for when Osama bin Laden was killed to ramp up appropriately," Commander Pat Jordan, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD) says, despite budget issues.

"When you have such shrinking budgets, one of the things is to make sure you're reaching out to your partners," Jordan points out. "Metro has benefited from a contract with the [Los Angeles County] Sheriffs' Department, which has approximately 18,000 employees. When necessary, we're able to get additional employees and specialized units employed in our system to augment our numbers." For example, he adds, LASD has a team dedicated exclusively to Hazardous Materials as it relates to terrorism.

The LASD also will partner with the LAPD and whatever other agencies are necessary to respond to an alert, ­Jordan says.

"For example, if we were targeting terrorism, we would reach out to TSA and other LAPD partners to augment whatever staffing that we have here, as well as putting additional staff from the Sheriff's Department," he explains.

To keep riders on the lookout, "Transit Watch," a public awareness and education campaign patterned after the successful "BlockWatch" program initiated in communities across the country, and see "See Something, Say Something" have been in place for many years, providing the public with a phone number that rings to the Sheriff's Department if they see something that's inappropriate, Jordan says.

To supplement the "See Something, Say Something program, Metro constantly runs voice messages, instructing riders that if they see a suspicious-looking or unattended package to contact the police department and provides the phone number. They also have a video messaging board, which, in addition to scrolling real-time arrival information, shows riders what to do if they see unattended packages or anything suspicious.

"They are constantly, particularly on the rails, messaging passengers," Jordan says.

In yet another effort to empower passengers with more security tools, Metro is currently working on a public awareness website, Jordan adds. The website will teach the public what information to gather when they see something suspicious, how to report it and where to report it to.

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Officer, operator training

To enhance security, about two years ago, the LASD implemented a threat interdiction unit comprised of an anti-terrorism team. The team conducts daily mobile search, screening operations and high-visibility patrols, based on threat assessments as to where an attack is likely to take place. The unit was fully funded through the TSA, Jordan says.

LASD also deploys canines throughout the Metro system on a daily basis, enabling the anti-terrorism team to respond to suspicious or unattended packages and quickly clear them, ensure they're safe and reduce any destruction to the transit system.

"The canines and threat interdiction unit are very visible, so it helps to allay the fear of the public," Jordan points out. "They see them; they know what they're about. It gives them greater confidence."

The canine program is supported by the federal government as a TSA initiative.

In addition, Metro stays an active security partner with its employee awareness program, which teaches special operations employees, including bus and train operators, maintenance personnel and supervisors, what threat signals to look for and who to report them to.

The LASD is currently training all of its law enforcement and security staff in active shooter training, a tactic designed to help officers engaged in an active shooting situation - confronting an armed person who has used deadly physical force on others and continues to do so. About one-third have completed training so far.

Additionally, officers are being trained in aviation assessment and response, which covers how to recognize inappropriate behaviors that should raise suspicion and to assess an environment [for unsafe circumstances]. Part of the training shows officers how to talk to people and assess whether they are being deceitful.

"We just started the deputies on that as well, and probably trained 100 of our staff so far. The training security folks will be trained on that as well," Jordan says.

The LASD received federal grant money to develop Metro's in-house program for deviation assessment and received additional federal funding to pay for the staff to get trained.

"Any time you train somebody, you have to take them out of the field, for the curriculum development and the training itself," Jordan says. "The federal government has been supportive in getting [us] that training."

Metro received money from the Transit Security Grant program, the Urban Area Security Initiative, the Homeland Security Grant Program and a portion of California Prop 1 B funding that is set aside for transit ­security.

As part of its joint regional intelligence center, the LASD employs a transit expert, who monitors information that comes from around the country and the world, in terms of potential threats.

"There's real-time feedback from the folks who are seeing intelligence coming from around the world, to us as to whether L.A. or the transit system's being threatened," Jordan explains.

 

About the author
Nicole Schlosser

Nicole Schlosser

Former Executive Editor

Nicole was an editor and writer for School Bus Fleet. She previously worked as an editor and writer for Metro Magazine, School Bus Fleet's sister publication.

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