Mass transit: target of terror.

Terrorism has become a reality of modem life. Domestically, such extreme acts as the World Trade Center and the Oklahoma City bombings have brought home the reality of both foreign and domestic sources of terror. Added to the terrorist's arsenal of conventional explosives is the use of chemical and biological weapons. In fact, many experts believe that the question is not whether a major bioterrorist attack will occur but when such an attack will take place.(1) And, in recent years, both domestic and foreign terrorists increasingly have focused on mass transit to maximize mass terror.

Terrorists seek the shock and publicity that accompany attacks, and in the past, many have chosen airliners as targets. Yet, as increased security measures have made such attacks more difficult, terrorists have searched for alternate venues to deliver their messages. The likelihood of numerous casualties coupled with an inherent lack of security makes mass transit systems a suitable mark for terrorism. Such domestic incidents as the October 1995 attack on an Amtrak line in Arizona have highlighted the threat, while overseas, such incidents as the March 1995 poison gas attack in the Tokyo subway underscore the ability to target a large number of innocent victims. Faced with these incidents and the prospect for future destruction on mass transit systems, law enforcement agencies must prepare for a broad range of possible assaults aimed at these types of targets.

PREPARING FOR TERRORISM

Terrorist attacks not only hold the potential for massive destruction but also require a response from a multitude of organizations, from law enforcement and emergency services to structural engineers and heavy equipment operators. Such disparate agencies may have never worked together and may have no experience with the transit system. Preincident planning and extensive interagency training can help overcome these weaknesses. Periodic full dress rehearsals help to ensure that every unit will be able to meet its assigned tasks when the time comes. Because of their experience in responding to critical incidents, law enforcement agencies must take the lead in preparing for terrorist attacks.

DEFINING THE TERRORIST THREAT

In order to coordinate the appropriate response, law enforcement first must determine whether an incident can be defined as a terrorist act. While obvious acts of terrorism can be identified as such, more subtle acts, particularly ones that come without warning or without anyone claiming credit, can delay the appropriate response.

To successfully combat a terrorist incident, law enforcement first must assume that a terrorist act has occurred whenever a warning has been received, credit has been claimed by a terrorist group after the incident, or the magnitude or location of the incident would merit a cautious presumption of an attack. For example, even a small incident directed at a prime government target (e.g., the Metro transit station at the Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia) should trigger at least the start of a counterterrorist response until investigation has determined that such a response is unwarranted.

While the local police department initially will treat many terrorist acts like large-scale criminal acts, important differences exist. Criminal and terrorists acts usually differ in their magnitude and design. For example, in criminal acts, offenders usually do not plan to take hostages. When they do so, it often occurs when their actions are discovered by law enforcement earlier than they had anticipated.(2) By contrast, terrorists intend to take hostages and usually do so to accomplish certain political objectives. Moreover, their dedication to their cause and practiced approach usually makes them a greater threat to the hostages and to the law enforcement officers trying to protect the public.

Terrorist acts fall into two general categories of police incidents, normal and atypical. While some elements remain common to all types of police response, each potential threat requires a different law enforcement action.

Normal Threats

Normal threats include bomb threats and actual bombs, hostage-taking scenarios, and shootings or snipers. The police frequently encounter such incidents and have standard practices and strategies in place for dealing with them. Although the terrorist variants of these criminal acts - hostage takings, politically motivated weapon assaults, or bombs - represent the easiest attacks for the police to understand, terrorist acts often differ in motivation, size, and location. Unfortunately, few local law enforcement agencies can amass the response required to combat them.(3)

Specifically, while most local law enforcement agencies can handle a barricaded felon, when terrorists take hostages, their demands most likely will reach beyond the local authority's ability to meet them. Accordingly, local agencies should seek assistance from the military and from federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI's Critical Incident Response Group and the U.S. Marshals Special Operations Group, by contacting the local FBI field office. Until such help arrives, the local authority should treat the incident like any other hostage situation but with one major caveat. The possibility that a terrorist will take the lives of hostages to deliver a message remains very real, and the on-scene commander should consider this threat prior to initiating any precipitous action such as an assault.

A series of bombings in Atlanta, Georgia, has revealed the latest variant in terrorist activities within a conventional police incident. These incidents represent typical cases except for one act: the use of a secondary explosive device designed to attack responders. Thus, the law enforcement authority must take control at the bombing scene not only to preserve evidence but also to protect emergency response teams from secondary weapons.

Unfortunately, secondary explosive devices are difficult to detect. Explosive detection dogs prove less effective in areas already contaminated by explosive residue. If detection is not possible, then law enforcement must create a safety zone by removing other threats (e.g., towing parked cars) or creating a shielded area in which the responders can work safely.

To plan for normal terrorist threats, police departments should determine the maximum response they can provide, then locate outside resources to provide the rest. If necessary, the department should sign interagency agreements to ensure a complete response when the need arises. For example, the Portland Police Bureau's Special Emergency Reaction Team has an interagency training and response agreement with such agencies as the Washington County, Oregon, Sheriff's Office Tactical Negotiation Team, the Oregon State Police's SWAT team, and the local FBI office's SWAT team. The teams regularly train together in anticipation of terrorist threats. Although the expertise of these groups lies in the tactical arena, a complete response would require the coordination of agencies well-versed in every area of crisis management. For this reason, the Portland Police Bureau stages mock incidents on the transit system and coordinates the response between the diverse agencies likely to become involved.

Atypical Threats

In March 1995, the Aum Shinrikyo religious sect, using five canisters of diluted Sarin, an extremely toxic chemical, disguised as lunch boxes and soft drinks, exposed 5,000 to 6,000 persons in the Tokyo subway system, killing 12 people. Another attack attributed to the same group occurred less than 2 months later at another subway station. Police discovered a simple binary weapon system that prior to mixing, contained the needed precursors for hydrogen cyanide gas. These two attacks, just two of the six attributed to the group,(4) represent types of atypical threats. Falling outside the typical police experience, such incidents include the use or threatened use of chemical, biological, or radioactive materials.

Attacks do not have to be elaborate or sophisticated to be deadly. A biological weapon, such as anthrax, can be used in a rudimentary manner and still inflict thousands of casualties. For example, wind from passing trains could circulate anthrax spores deposited in the underground tunnel of a subway system and claim thousands of lives.(5)

Nuclear attacks represent the third type of atypical incident. In this case, however, nuclear refers, not to atomic bombs, but to the use of radiological material scattered by conventional explosives. Such materials prove more subtle and difficult to detect and eradicate, making them last longer and able to infect a greater number of people.

Whether biological, chemical, or nuclear, atypical attacks extend beyond the ability of any law enforcement agency to counter unassisted. But help is available. The U.S. Marine Corps originally created its Chemical/Biological Incident Response Force for use at the Olympic games in Atlanta, and the U.S. Army also maintains units able to combat these threats. The 310th Chemical Company represents the first military unit able to detect and identify biological threat agents. Other Army units, such as the 25th Chemical Company, are trained to deal not only with chemical threats but with environmental hazards, as well.(6) The FBI coordinates the federal response, and local law enforcement in need of assistance should contact the nearest FBI field office.

Calling on such groups remains essential because law enforcement agencies themselves cannot detect these threats early enough to mitigate their effects. Most local law enforcement authorities rely on bomb squads and hazardous material teams to respond to these incidents. While possibly being able to detect chemical or radioactive substances, these teams may fail to detect slower-acting biological agents. Moreover, they even may overlook the possibility that a biological threat exists.

TRANSIT SYSTEM CONSIDERATIONS

Terrorist attacks that occur on transit systems can tax even the most seasoned law enforcement veteran. A hostage situation on a city bus requires a different response than an incident on a subway car. At the same time, an attack on a subway car or a bus calls for different measures than one that targets a subway or bus station. To prepare for such attacks, officials must consider a number of factors. For example, at system entrances and exits, scores of people congregate, multiplying the potential for injury. Certain fuel types, such as the compressed natural gas used in an increasing number of buses, could be sabotaged to explode. Response teams could use the external cutoff switches built into some vehicles in a tactical maneuver to thwart terrorists.

Light-rail vehicles require special consideration. Overhead power lines could fall to the tracks, and electricity from the third rail could jeopardize rescue efforts. In addition, approaches to such vehicles change in relationship to where the vehicles are on the tracks. Specifically, different strategies and responses must be planned for stations, where doors open onto platforms, and assaults between stations, where doors are at a considerable height above the rail bed.

Evacuation from the system may represent a formidable obstacle in the event of a terrorist threat. Only preincident planning and practice can effectively evacuate passengers, staff, and tenants who may surround the transit station. Transit officials for London's Underground plan for evacuation by training shopkeepers and practicing regularly. By doing so, major stations can clear out 3,000 to 4,000 individuals in 3 to 4 minutes. In 1991, transit personnel evacuated 60,000 people from the entire transit system in 10 minutes.(7)

Evacuation plans should include the selection of staging areas, where passengers can await transport to safe locations, as well as alternate locations, in the event that the first site is downwind from a hazardous gas release. Extra buses can serve as shelter for victims, witnesses, and workers and, equally important, can accommodate the transit needs of passengers who arrive at the scene expecting to enter the system. If possible, alternatives to the affected transit line or system must be established in order to diminish the crowds that would otherwise accumulate at the scene.

In short, agencies preparing for mass transit terrorism cannot merely apply their typical critical incident response plan. Instead, they must consider the unique needs of transit systems and tailor their responses accordingly. Yet, even a meticulously planned and flawlessly executed response cannot substitute for preventing an attack from occurring in the first place.

PREVENTION STRATEGIES

Prevention represents a key element in preparing for terrorism. Part of the prevention plan must include an aggressive effort to use security and detection, as well as environmental design, to stave off terrorist attacks before they can be implemented.

Security and Detection

When assessing sites and vehicles to develop a planned response, law enforcement should evaluate and safeguard vulnerable parts of the system, such as entrances, exits, and potential hiding places. Regular monitoring of these vulnerable parts of the system, coupled with the use of an antitampering design, which allows officials to detect tampering, can provide a basis for increased patrol during times of heightened concern. Further, training all employees, tenants, and patrons of the transit system to become aware of suspicious packages, smells, and passenger behavior can further deter terrorist attacks.

Environmental Design

Unfortunately, the design traditionally used for mass transit systems represents the antithesis of appropriate security. Mass transit systems are designed to be open and inviting, which creates ample opportunity for a variety of attacks. Still, transit officials can make the system inviting, while decreasing the possibility of a terrorist attack. For example, New York City's Metropolitan Transit Authority completed a security review of its system after the gas attack in Tokyo. Improvements included removing open spaces behind ticket booths, a natural hiding place for bombs, and placing antitampering devices in the subway's ventilation system.(8)

Retrofitting an existing facility may prove difficult; it remains much easier to design new facilities with crime prevention and terrorism reduction in mind. For example, in London, garbage cans were removed from the street because of the potential for members of the Irish Republican Army to use them to hide bombs. A similar threat could take place in the nation's transit systems and underscores the need for officials to consider such details when designing new facilities. In a new facility, trash chutes could move litter from areas where people congregate to a lower level a safe distance away. Just as every new construction project must undergo an environmental impact review, law enforcement personnel could conduct a security review as another part of the design process.

CONCLUSION

In the past, local law enforcement believed, with some justification, that terrorists would target only such major cities as New York or Washington, DC. They assumed that other, smaller cities remained safe from such attacks. Now, law enforcement officers in every jurisdiction, large and small, urban and rural, must at least recognize the potential for attack and plan accordingly. And, because of their potential for massive casualties and destruction, combined with an inherent lack of security, mass transit systems can become easy prey for terrorists.

Preparation remains the key to combating mass transit terrorism. First, law enforcement agencies must recognize terrorist acts, then respond accordingly. The appropriate response depends on a number of factors, including the type of threat encountered and the area of mass transit affected. Local law enforcement must work with a myriad of diverse agencies to neutralize the threat and deal with its aftermath. Such a massive undertaking cannot be left to chance; responding agencies must prepare for every contingency and drill to maintain a state of readiness. As important, local agencies must recognize when an incident reaches beyond their capabilities. State and local authorities should not hesitate to contact the FBI for assistance; any delay could have serious consequences.

Finally, law enforcement administrators should work with transit and government officials to tighten security on mass transit and to design new systems to thwart acts of terrorism. When officials limit the ability of terrorists to function freely,(9) they keep the citizens they serve safe.

Endnotes

1 Robert Taylor, "All Fall Down," New Scientist, May 11, 1996, 32.

2 Sgt. Martin Rowley, team leader, Portland Police Bureau's Special Emergency Reaction Team, interview by author, 1996.

3 Law enforcement units preparing to combat terrorist acts include the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department's Emergency Response Team; the New York Police Department's Emergency Service Unit; the Los Angeles Police Department's Special Weapons and Tactics Team: the Chicago Police Department's Hostage. Barricaded/Terrorist Team; the Portland Police Bureau's Special Emergency Reaction Team: the Metro-Dade, Florida, Police Department's Special Response Team; and Kansas City, MO, Police Department's Tactical Response Team. See Samuel M. Katz, The Illustrated Guide to the World's Top Counterterrorist Forces (Hong Kong: Concord, 1995), 4.

4 Henry I. DeGeneste and John P. Sullivan. "Transit Terrorism: Beyond Pelham 1-2-3," The Police Chief, February 1996, 46.

5 Supra note 1, 34-35.

6 Shirley L. DeGroot, "Comment and Discussion: 'Who Will Answer the Chem/Bio Call?'" Proceedings, March 1997, 120.

7 Joseph Scanlon. "Passenger Safety and Efficient Service: Managing Risk on London's Underground," Transit Policing, Fall 1996, 12.

8 Lenny Levine, "Terrorism," Metro, July/August 1996, 26.

9 Supra note 3, 11.

Sources of Additional Information

The following Web sites contain information on terrorism in general, as well as details on mass transit attacks:

The Infrastructure Protection Task Force http://www.fbi.gov/programs/iptf/iptf.htm

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA), Office of Safety and Security, Transit Security Newsletter http://www.fta.dot.gov/library/program/tsn/tsn.htm

The FTA's Safety and Security Program, includes extensive bibliography http://www.fta.dot.gov/fta/library/planning/ TSSP/tssp.html

The FBI http://www.fbi.gov

The Emergency Federal Law Enforcement Assistance Program http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA/html/specprog.htm or http://www.ncjrs.org/txtfiles/eflea.txt

The National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Centers http://www.nlectc.org

U.S. Department of State http://www.state.gov/www/global/terrorism/index.html

U.S. Department of Transportation http://www.dot.gov

Source: Adapted from Eric Barnes, with Marj P. Leaming, Ph.D., and Linda Cavazos, "Protecting Public Transportation from Terrorists," National Institute of Justice Journal, March 1998, 21.

Officer Nelson serves with the Portland, Oregon, Police Bureau.