16/01/2012
In the days after September 11, 2001, local and state law enforcement awoke to the fact that antiterrorism and counterterrorism methods needed to be integrated into the traditional policing role.
Over ten years after that fateful September day, many police agencies have gone back to the September 10th mindset. They do not provide terrorism awareness training to officers. Two reasons stand out above the rest; (a) little or no budget available, especially for smaller or remote departments and (b) complacency has set in. Incredibly, some areas have not dedicated even one officer for anti-terrorism training. A specially-trained terrorism liaison officer is needed in the very possible event that either “homegrown” terror or a foreign terror cell is operating in your community.
Immediately following 9/11, it was standing room only at weekly regional terrorism intelligence meetings at agencies across the country. But as the weeks, months, and years passed, the numbers dwindled except for the “regulars”; those who never lost sight of the looming threat. In some cases, those meetings have been reduced to only a few times a year.
I have interviewed numerous officers in various agencies since that time. They tell me that when they take a report of a suspicious incident that may relate to terrorism, they refer it to their state fusion center or send a copy of the report to the FBI and that’s the end of it. There is no follow up and no communication with anybody as far as ongoing investigation is concerned. Many of these officers have commented that they believe that it is federal law enforcement’s responsibility to investigate these matters because terrorism is a federal offense.
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