I find it rather interesting the way Washington responds when there's violence like there was at the Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Thursday morning on my ride in to work on the Metro, there was suddenly security everywhere you looked. On the Rhode Island Avenue platform there were no fewer than five metro police. At least this time they didn't have automatic weapons. But I did notice at another stop that the canine units were out too.
The thing that gets me is what the police do. See if this would make you feel more secure. A train pulls into the station. The doors open. Several police officers step into cars. They look to the right and then to the left and then step off the car. Now maybe in the twenty seconds or so that they survey the car they might just be able to spot a bad guy. Of course as a civilian in these matters, I haven't received the training that these guys have. But what exactly would you spot in such a short time. Unless someone has a sign on that says "hey I'm a terrorists" I can't see what this accomplishes.
Then again maybe the idea is to show a police presence. Maybe the idea is to make the bad guys think twice about doing anything. Maybe the idea is to reassure the public at large that law enforcement is out there protecting the public.
1 comment:
While police do have training to help them spot trouble, the real purpose is what you were saying in your last paragraph: To reassure the public. It's the same reason that airline passengers are required to remove their shows and put toiletries into a little plastic bag: None of those will prevent a bomb getting onto a plane, but they make the public feel safer (and annoyed, but that's just an added bonus…).
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