A Cop's-Eye View of Terrorism

A Cop's-Eye View of Terrorism

The Wall Street Journal (US).   [Op-Ed].   William J. Bratton   18/04/2013.            

London -- For me the Boston Marathon has both personal and professional significance. Growing up in the city's Dorchester neighborhood in the 1950s, I used to go watch the runners every spring with my dad. It was the happiest day of the year, with schools and offices closed, the Red Sox game played early, and excited crowds packed proudly all along the course.

Later, throughout the 1970s and '80s, I worked the marathon as a Boston police officer, from patrolman up to commissioner of police. We planned and trained for the occasional political demonstration, but our job focused mostly on crowd control, traffic and the inevitable disorderly behavior in and around bars. Terrorism was barely a thought.

Even when I served as New York City police commissioner in the mid-1990s -- after the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 -- I spent less than 1% of my time on terrorism-related issues. The 9/11 attacks changed all that for New York, Boston and every other major city in America, including Los Angeles, where I was police chief from 2002 to 2009. Public-safety officials recognized that any public site, especially those with civic or economic symbolism, could be targeted for a spectacular act of terrorism. As far as we've come since 9/11, however, it is an impossible dream to think we can prevent every act of terror. That is a goal worth striving for, but some plots won't be deterred or foiled. So it was in Boston this week.

The primary task for law enforcement after such an attack is to identify the perpetrator(s), apprehend them, and examine whether this attack was a one-off or the first in a series. The longer it takes to identify perpetrators, the higher public fear will remain and the more thinly police resources will be spread. Terrorists often quickly claim credit for their attacks, but in many ways it is more diabolical for them to stay quiet, stoking public uncertainty and dissipating resources.

Police have been examining the remnants of the two explosive devices found on Boylston Street, which can be helpful in determining culpability. Certain people have access to certain types of explosives, and certain groups often prefer certain types of weapons. In London in the summer of 2005, for example, police were able to recognize similarities between a failed bombing attempt and the successful 7/7 bombings that had been carried out weeks before. Studying the explosives might allow police to track where particular chemicals or other components were purchased.

A major part of this investigation will be sorting through the photographs and video that police have requested from the public. The deluge may test the capacity of law enforcement to catalog and analyze so much material, but crucial clues are likely hiding in the digital files of marathon-goers who were unfortunate enough to be near Monday's explosions.

One good sign is that there don't appear to be any major turf battles going on among local, state and federal authorities involved in the investigation. The FBI quickly took leadership, thanks to protocols put in place in the late 1990s and after 9/11 that set jurisdiction for different types of incidents. This allows other agencies (at all levels of government) to fall into line and know their respective roles. When I was on the Boston force, by contrast, all sorts of incidents -- for example, a plane running off the runway at Logan Airport and into the harbor -- would be followed by unproductive turf battles between city and state police.

The past few days have also vindicated the sort of heightened preparedness emphasized by security and health officials since 9/11. Controlling crowds and directing traffic remain priorities for Boston police on the day of the marathon, but they have also drilled to prepare for much more. The police tent by the finish line has gotten bigger over the years. Whereas it was once equipped mainly to deal with exhausted and dehydrated runners, it now hosts a wide range of personnel ready to activate various contingency plans, including responding to a terrorist attack -- how to deploy emergency-medical technicians, where to arrange the ingress and egress of ambulances, etc. Then there was the senior doctor from Massachusetts General Hospital who noted that his team was prepared for the gruesome injuries they encountered because they received training recently from Israeli doctors experienced with terrorist bombings.

Such preparedness is so important because a democratic society simply cannot secure all venues and events at all times. There is no ability to cordon off a whole marathon route and treat miles of urban streets with the degree of security at, say, a baseball stadium. It is impossible to secure everything. There will always be vulnerabilities along a 26-mile route, and police will always have to make decisions about how to deploy their finite resources.

Public-safety officials are doing just that in London, where I have been visiting this week and where some 35,000 runners are expected for the city's annual marathon on Sunday. Police will surely send extra resources to those parts of the course near historical sites such as Tower Bridge and Big Ben -- the kind of landmarks that attract disproportionate attention from those who seek to create violent spectacles of mayhem.

Back in Boston, finding those responsible for Monday's grim spectacle will require authorities to investigate with precision but without tunnel vision. According to the public record, at least, there seems no reason yet to disqualify any class of suspects -- from al Qaeda types to neo-Nazis, antigovernment fanatics in the mold of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, and others. After the bombing at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, investigators lost months focusing erroneously on a security guard who was near the scene.

Most important for law enforcement is to keep an open mind and follow the evidence wherever it leads. The public should be prepared for more false or misleading news reports like those on Wednesday announcing an arrest in the case. Ultimately it may take days, it may take years, but I am confident that the culprits behind the atrocity on Monday will be identified and apprehended.
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Mr. Bratton, a former police commissioner in Boston and New York, and a former chief of police in Los Angeles, is CEO of the Bratton Group.