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I’ve ridden the Cyclone and the Wonder Wheel at Coney Island many times, and not once did I suspect that the seemingly abandoned warehouse nearby is, behind the weathered brick facade, hi-tech home to the NYPD’s Counterterrorism division. For this podcast, our camera crew was granted a rare glimpse inside.
We met officer Todd Metro, inventor of the “metroblock” (the customized concrete blocks that bar vehicles from haphazardly approaching sensitive buildings.) He gave us a tour of the facility, including the giant command center that
will function as the Office of Emergency Management should some climactic disaster strike the one in Manhattan. We witnessed officers learning to use radiation detectors, and Metro also showed us a mock-up of the Ryder truck bomb that exploded inside the World Trade Center in 1993, as well as a re-creation of the bomb factory in Leeds, England that was used in the subway bombings: both are used for officer training.
The Counterterrorism division was in the news recently with “Operation Kaboom” and “Operation City Lights”, both of which involved NYPD detectives attempting to smuggle fertilizer/radioactive explosive devices into Manhattan, to test the NYPD’s ability to prevent another attack. The Counterterrorism Division detected and “apprehended” the vehicle with the radioactive isotope; However, the detectives with the fertilizer bomb were able to construct, deliver, and mock-detonate their device undetected.
- Tom Small, ScribeMedia.org
