by Al Baker, New York Times
To discourage terrorists from using ambulances as weapons, the Fire Department’s ambulances now bear placards with a color of the day to mark them as legitimate.
The system began Sunday, according to a departmental order issued Friday, a day after law enforcement officials warned New Yorkers to be alert to the possibility that terrorists could use emergency vehicles like ambulances, fire trucks, police cars or replicas to sneak explosives or suicide bombers into restricted areas.
The union for emergency medical technicians criticized the new system, saying it was too crude to be effective. Terrorists could figure out the color by looking at ambulances and then replicate the placard that is placed in the windshield, said Robert A. Ungar, counsel for the union, the Uniformed Emergency Medical Technicians — F.D.N.Y.
An even greater problem, Mr. Ungar said, is that the system is only being used by the 600 daily ambulance shifts of the Fire Department but not the 400 shifts run by hospitals and private companies, whose employees are not part of his union. Mr. Ungar said private ambulances should not be allowed to respond to 911 calls or be given special access to areas of public assembly, like schools or stadiums.
Fire Department officials were reluctant to discuss the initiative. One official stressed it was only temporary, while a better security system for identifying vehicles — perhaps using hologram stickers that are difficult to duplicate — is developed. The official said that private ambulances provided a vital service and that six people from private ambulances were killed after responding to the attack on the twin towers.
Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly praised the color plan as a step in the right direction, especially, he said, considering that ambulances had played roles in 14 terrorist incidents in recent years, including an attempt to kill former President George Bush during a visit to Kuwait in 1993.
Also, the color of the day is just one of many measures being taken to secure Fire Department vehicles. According to the order, all unattended departmental vehicles must now be parked with the engine off and the keys removed and must be checked every three hours, and they must be stocked with guidebooks for chemical and biological attacks. Fire officials are also considering hiring guards to protect the places where vehicles are stored or using a device to lock their wheels in place.
A color-of-the-day system has been used by other agencies to denote legitimacy. Plainclothes city police officers, for example, have been instructed for years to display a color of the day and wear their badges on chains so they are easily accessible and fellow officers can recognize them in confrontational situations.
But the system is not without its failures. Most notably, in August 1994, Desmond Robinson, an undercover police officer, was shot by a fellow officer who mistook him for a criminal. Officer Robinson did not display his badge or the daily color in that case.