Antiterrorist Policing in New York City after 9/11: Comparing Perspectives on a Complex Process

Human Organization, Spring 2005 by Bornstein, Avram

In the NYPD, major changes were initiated less than three and a half months after 9/11 when Michael Bloomberg replaced Rudolph Giuliani as mayor, and invited a previous commissioner, Raymond Kelly, back to New York to serve a second time. Kelly made appointments that brought significant international experience and high-level connections to the NYPD including Deputy Commissioner of Counterterrorism Frank Libutti, a retired US Marine Corps lieutenant General (who left a year later), and Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence David Cohen, a former CIA operations chief.

The NYPD began to strengthen investigation capacity. They initiated an antiterrorist telephone hot-line campaign on busses and subways, which urged people to report suspicious people or objects. A new high-tech counter-terrorism center was built. The number of antiterrorist detectives quickly rose from 20 to 120 to investigate public tips and vendors of supplies useful to terrorists such as chemical distributors or scuba equipment retailers. The Department conducted a language survey that revealed only 27 Arabic speakers on the force (Gardiner and Parascandola 2002). Besides community affairs, several Arabic speaking officers were transferred to intelligence and more were sought in recruiting.

NYPD investigators have been sent across the country and overseas to train with police in cities including London, Hamburg, Toronto, Lyon, and Tel Aviv (Weiss 2002). Many officers have received an assortment of tactical training from the Federal government and other outside experts, from terrorist profiling to first response protocols for future attacks. Terrorism drills, some involving over a thousand first responders, have tested how agencies like the NYPD, the FDNY, and the city's Department of Environmental Protection, respond and interact in a mock emergency (El-Ghobashy 2004). Assignment to the Joint Terrorist Task Force put officers in contact with the DHS, the FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service, the U.S. Department of State's Diplomatic security Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the New York State Police, the New York/New Jersey Port Authority Police Department and the U.S. secret Service. One of the main difficulties these agencies face in coordination is deciding who has jurisdiction over complex cases and who is best able to execute investigations.

There has also been a heavily militarized aspect of the response. The NYPD rotates six helicopters to surveil the city from above. New Yorkers also witnessed Operation Hercules on the ground in which heavily armed special interdiction forces show up at different locations with no obvious pattern (Horowitz 2003). According to Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, the random nature of this show offeree is meant to throw off possible terrorists. Kelly said:

"We have done a fairly comprehensive examination of al-Qaida doctrine, al-Qaida handbooks. We know that they make a major commitment to reconnaissance, they make a major commitment to planning. So if you change the pattern of normal security or normal enforcement, we believe that can be disconcerting and disruptive" (Interview on 60 Minutes, March 23, 2003).