Department leaders’ main focus has changed to battling terrorism.
by Sean Gardiner and Rocco Parascandola, New York Newsday
As the second jetliner rammed into the World Trade Center last Sept. 11, three New York City police officers watched helplessly through the glass bubble floor of their helicopter.
The officers - detectives Patrick Walsh, Timothy Hayes and Don Gromling - had been circling the North Tower, radioing in information about the gaping hole caused by the first terrorist strike, when “they observed the second plane coming directly at them,” said their supervisor, Capt. Joseph Gallucci.
“They climbed out (to a higher altitude ) and the airplane flew directly underneath them, maybe 150 feet below them, which is nothing when you’re in a helicopter and a big aircraft going 500 miles per hour is that close.”
Like the three officers, who had no way to stop the hijacked airplane, the police department on Sept. 11, 2001 was ill-equipped to stop terrorism.
At the time, less than two dozen of the force’s 39,000 officers worked full time on terrorism, all assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, then the only NYPD unit assigned to the issue. But since the attacks, the focus of policing in New York City has changed. Muggers, rapists and drug dealers have been knocked down a notch on the NYPD’s priority list. Terrorism has become far and away the top focus among leaders, who learned the bitter lesson that it’s not enough to depend on federal law enforcement to protect the city from terrorists.
More than 900 NYPD cops are now assigned to full-time terrorism-related positions, most guarding bridges, landmarks or other likely targets. And when Ray Kelly became police commissioner in January, he brought in military and CIA officials, ordered new training and tried to upgrade equipment.
But despite what Eli Silverman, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, described as “a herculean effort (by the NYPD ) to get up to speed in all areas of counterterrorism,” the question remains - is the city safer now than it was a year ago?
Like other law enforcement officials, Kelly said he thinks the answer to that is “absolutely.”
“We’re much more vigilant,” Kelly said. “We have systems in place now and if, God forbid, something does happen, we’re more ready to respond.”
But Vincent Cannistraro, who headed the CIA’s counterterrorism unit before becoming a security advisor, said New York is still a wide-open target.
“For anyone to say the city is buttoned down is foolish,” he said. “There are a lot of ways to attack New York City.”
And even Kelly is concerned that the city budget crunch is forcing the NYPD to cut its budget at a time when it is in dire need of more protective gear and devices for chemical, radiological and biological detection. The department, for instance, has “access” to U.S. Customs trucks with radiation and chemical detectors, but doesn’t have such trucks of its own.
Radiation detection pagers, which were passed out to patrol sergeants after Sept. 11, were touted in the media. But Kelly, without saying how many they have, admits it’s not enough.
“We’d like to get several hundred, we don’t have that now, I’ll tell you that,” he said.
And Kelly said “a lot more training is needed” that will require bringing officers in on overtime. But in trying to close a $ 5 billion budget shortfall, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has ordered Kelly to cut 7 percent, or $ 118 million, from his budget. “The budget situation is bad,” Kelly said. “I don’t know what that ultimately means for this department.”
Turning to deeper pockets, Kelly said he has sought $ 500 million of $ 3.1 billion appropriated by the federal government for first responders. But it’s no sure bet the city will get all of that money.
Despite the budget constraints, Kelly said much progress has been made.
The department established its first Counter Terrorism Unit and brought in retired Marine Lt. Gen. Frank Libutti, who once commanded the Marine Forces Pacific, to serve as its head.
Under the hard-charging Libutti, the number of NYPD detectives assigned to the Joint Terrorist Task Force rose from about 20 to 120. Another 90 or so detectives work for Libutti, whose duties Kelly described in generalities as “gathering information, analyzing information, putting together training packages, working more closely with the FBI” and “communicating with people in Washington.”
Kelly also brought in the former fourth-highest ranking official in the CIA, David Cohen, who was once in charge of the agency’s espionage division, and tasked him with revamping the department’s Intelligence Division to be more focused on terrorism.
The trio meet every morning at 8 to discuss any new developments. From their talks some non-traditional NYPD strategic moves have emerged.
NYPD officers have been stationed with police in Toronto and at the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. Others are slated to be sent to Israel and to the Lyon, France, headquarters of Interpol, the international police organization, to gather information.
The World Trade Center investigation has taken other NYPD officers to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Egypt and to the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where city cops have interrogated captured members of al-Qaida and the Taliban.
Kelly is also re-training a department that has prided itself on its success in fighting street crime.
Supervisors are being sent to the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., for military training. Officers and recruits are being taught how to spot suspicious identification, how to inspect cars for possible bombs and how to respond to terrorist attack.
One of the most important lessons of Sept. 11, Kelly said, is that officers have to be more disciplined when responding to a potential terrorist threat than when handling a typical New York crime.
“The training emphasizes you go to the mobilization point, check in, form up in teams and find out specifically what you’re supposed to do. You don’t just go to the scene,” he said.
To make sure police understand the new policy - enshrined in Interim Order 29 - unannounced training exercises every 10 days to two weeks force officers to deal with a terrorist threat, such as a possible bomb left on a real bridge. In the past year, about 6,000 of the 53,000 cops and civilians in the NYPD have participated in such mobilization drills.
The new approach, Kelly said, is counterintuitive for most cops.
“If you spent any time on this job at all you think in single events, everybody rushing to the scene,” Kelly said. “Now you have to think about multiple events, you have to think about the use of chemical or biological agents. You have to think about working with other agencies, you have to think about working with the federal government. Those types of things are built into the scenarios.”
Lack of coordination, especially between police and firefighters, has been a focus of recent criticism. A report by consultants McKinsey & Company sad the two agencies need to agree on their roles in major incidents, train together and communicate better.
Lack of communication on Sept. 11 was caused partly by the agencies’ incompatible radios, according to the McKinsey report. It focused on the FDNY’s outdated radios, which work poorly in high-rise buildings and tunnels. UHF radios, purchased to allow communication with the NYPD, failed last year and haven’t been distributed. McKinsey urged the FDNY to finish testing the radios in hopes of getting them to firefighters within four months.
Kelly and Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta have at least made a public show of bridging the long-standing chasm between the two departments by appointing liaisons to each other’s department. But Kelly said essentially the FDNY must switch to the UHF system to be compatible with police radios.
Since Sept. 11, the NYPD also has turned to the public for help. A hotline - 888-NYC-SAFE-- takes tips. “We get 40 to 50 calls a day on that hotline,” Kelly said, “and they’re pretty thoughtful, not crazy.” Every tip gets pursued, he said, though none have resulted in a major break.
Intel officers have visited about 1,500 stores in the city that sell materials - like scuba gear, chemicals or guns - that terrorists could use and have asked them to be on the lookout for suspicious characters.
In the subways, extra alarms have been placed at sensitive locations, on certain tunnels and substation power plants, police sources said. “We actually have cops setting the alarms off intentionally and seeing if other cops respond,” a source said. Security at subway yards has been stiffened. Police have adopted a “zero tolerance” policy on homeless people living in subway tunnels - they’re arrested if found, said the source - and a crackdown on unlicensed subway vendors. Transit workers must all wear their identifications, it’s no longer good enough just to have on a “vest and flashlight,” the source said.
And a language survey of the department has uncovered 27 Arabic speakers who can be used in a number of roles, Kelly said.
Most of the NYPD changes haven’t been noticeable to the public but others are planned to be obvious.
On a sunny afternoon last month, pilot Tony Spero and his co-pilot Charlie Caliendo flew their Bell Long Ranger 206 over the Hudson River, hovering to make sure no one was near the Holland Tunnel’s air vents. Then the chopper zoomed off to the Statue of Liberty, circling it conspicuously as tourists looked skyward.
The NYPD pilots were showboating, which is part of their mission on a “Hercules” patrol.
Under the Hercules program, teams of cops - wearing heavy armor-plated vests and carrying Heckler and Koch MP5 9-mm. submachine guns or Ruger Mini 14 rifles - have shown up at places like the Brooklyn Bridge, the Empire State Building or Yankee Stadium.
“We have our eyes on all public events,” said Sgt. Eugene O’Connor, 46, head of Emergency Service Unit truck 1.
“We have information that indicates planners on the other side (terrorists ) can be disrupted,” Kelly said. “They look for set patterns in their reconnaissance. What we want to do is throw them off.”
Hercules and the NYPD’s other responses to terrorism represent the most drastic change in its mission since 1940, when the police mobilized for civil defense in anticipation of World War II, according to Thomas Reppetto, an NYPD historian who co-authored the book “NYPD: A City and Its People.”
And no NYPD unit was changed more significantly than its aviators.
“The days of just chasing bad guys and doing rescues with helicopters is over,” Gallucci said. “We’ll still continue to do that type of work but the occupation of airborne law enforcement has risen to new heights for sure. It’s become a way of life now and this is the way it’s going to be for the rest of our careers in this unit.”
Now, the Aviation Unit patrols likely terrorist targets. And ESU officers have been practicing “fast roping,” sliding down ropes from hovering helicopters to get into a problem area quickly.
According to Gallucci, there have also “been some very real discussions about arming the New York City Police helicopters making them capable of disabling planes, boats . . .” Among the possible weapons discussed, he said, have been .50-caliber guns.
“But the Aviation Unit is also a good example of the predicament the NYPD has faced over the past year in its battle against terrorism. Lack of equipment and money to pay for new equipment is endemic in nearly all the NYPD’s units.
In the aviation unit, the four most-used helicopters - three Jet Rangers and the Long Ranger - are eight to 13 years old. The Jet Rangers drag on humid days and at most can carry one passenger along with its two pilots. Not all the choppers have equipment to send aerial pictures by computer and the radio equipment on board could use an upgrade.
The unit is due to get updated models for those aircraft, Gallucci said, and a new $ 9.8 million Bell 412 helicopter modified with “extremely high-tech computer equipment and tracking devices.” But those plans were in motion before Sept. 11.
Besides money troubles, there’s worry that the added focus on stopping terrorists will divert cops’ attention and result in a spike in crime. “If we’re doing counterterrorism work, they’re not doing traditional crime fighting and that’s a concern,” Kelly said. “So far they’ve been able to handle it.”
In fact,city crime has dropped almost 6 percent from 2001. Murders, down 131/2 percent from last year, are on pace to be as low as in 42 years.
When it comes to being ready for terrorism, New York is also doing well, said Jerome Hauer, assistant secretary of U.S. Health and Human Services and former head of the city’s Office of Emergency Management. Although a lot remains to be done, he said, " from my perspective, New York continues to be the best prepared city in the country.”
Similarly, James Kallstrom, a lead adviser to the State Office of Public Safety, said the city and state are in “pretty good shape.” Most problems, he said, “are federal issues, who comes and goes, who flies into Kennedy airport, who’s allowed into the port of New York.”
“Overall, I would hope that people feel (safer ),” Kallstrom said. “But the reality is that this is a war we’re in and that it’s going to go on for some time. Are we better off? Certainly we’re better off because at least we’re recognizing the problem now.”