Police Add Dirty Bomb Detectors To Arsenal In War On Terror
October 30, 2007 by national
Filed under Homeland Security News
Police in New York and New Jersey have been meeting over the past year as part of the “Securing the Cities” project, which will arm them with training and radiation detectors to help sniff out weapons that might be smuggled in through the suburbs.
The “Securing Our Cities” initiative is designed is to assist regional collaborations of municipalities to set up a detection and interdiction ring around the region with the goal of preventing nuclear weapons or radioactive materials from entering densely populated areas. The New York City metro area is the first location that the Administration has selected to launch this groundbreaking program.
Local law enforcement authorities in and around New York City are planning to install a network of stationary and mobile detection devices on highways, sea lanes, bridges and tunnels throughout the City, Long Island, the lower Hudson Valley, and New Jersey. The Securing the Cities project has the strong support of law enforcement in New York City and the surrounding counties, and it is sorely needed to combat the threat of a nuclear or radiological attack against the city.
Currently, more than 100 highly sensitive radiation detectors have been distributed to state police. Nearly as many will go to officers in Bergen and six other counties collected into a federal Urban Areas Security Initiative region.
Once DHS’ $80 million initiative is up and running, nearly 200 police departments within a 45-mile radius of Manhattan will have a variety of detection tools, including radiation-detecting “portals” through which commuter traffic will pass.
Such gateways – similar to ones being used at New Jersey seaports to scan ship containers – will be set up at highway tollbooths and weigh stations leading to New York City.
“We’ve brought together quite a capability in a short period of time that’ll be a model for the rest of the country,” said Jonathan A. Duecker, assistant commissioner of counterterrorism for the New York Police Department.
The best locations for the fixed portals are still being decided, federal and state officials said Friday. In Bergen County alone, authorities have identified at least 26 “hot spots” along the county infrastructure that could best snag a radiological device.
Until the portals are installed, police will make do with equipment distributed by the DHS’ Domestic Nuclear Detection Office.
