Advisory for Europe: Prep for Terrorist Attack

Makeda Tiye Young
October 16th 2010
4:02pm

As Europe has been on a high terror alert after an intelligence report notified the authorities of a Mumbai style attack the New York Police Department decided to conduct an terrorist attack prep drill. Even the London counterterror chief issued a advisement to travelers in Europe to use more precaution because of such an alert. The drill was conducted in the Manhattan Financial district on civilians to simulate an actual event. The Police Commissioner Ray Kelly on site gave an explanation of the drill. The drill began with two large explosions simulated with multiple bombs and shooters. There were bombs underneath cars in the location and many types of weaponry. This type of preparation comes from the 2008 Mumbai assault that killed 175 people so the NYPD changed their tactics in order that it dealt with a terrorist commando assault. During the actual drill the armed Emergency Service Unit officers supported by officers from the Organized Crime Control Bureau that were trained to handle an attack. The purpose of the OCCB officers were to make the NYPD response seem much larger and prevent multiple simultaneous attacks from overwhelming the forces responding to the attack. The response in the simulation was conducted with helicopters, automatic weapons and even an armored car.

As we have read in the past weeks security and preventative measures for terrorist attacks are on the rise and more people have been caught and prosecuted. I find it interesting that we have drills to prepare for an attack and I believe it is a great way to always have a plan. With the heightened alert in Europe intelligence agencies as well as counterterrorist organization sending advisories to the public is something I think should be universal. If more places had set plans, ways to communicate and an emergency plan some of these terrorist attacks along with better resources could have had less damaging results. I also think that the more involvement we have and more training the more difficult it is for the attacks to be fully carried out. This one program could be a solvent to a much larger problem.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/terror-alert-continues-nypd-holds-drill-prep-mumbai/story?id=11879452