AA's "Fat Flier" Got Whole Row
Ashley Dupre On Tiger Woods' Babes: "At Least I Kept My Mouth Shut"
Same-Sex Marriage Blame Game Aims at Paterson, Addabbo
Rihanna's Random Airport Search
Wife Tries To Abort And Poison Husband's Lovechild
In the eight days since it started randomly checking the NYPD has gone through thousands of bags in subway, bus and commuter train stations across the city. And the results have been negligible, which is a good thing according to the NYPD. The Times reports that in it's first week of operation the bag searches have led to one arrest for possession of illegal fireworks, no legal challenges and minimal resistance (those T-shirts don't count).
But despite all of the initial hoopla, some people are growing skeptical of the effectiveness of the searches on a system as large as ours. After seeming to be everywhere on Monday and Tuesday those little check tables appear to have become more scarce as the week progressed. By Friday even Gothamist was a little surprised by how rarely we saw them in our shleps around town (maybe we just pick the good subway entrances?). But that might be more about our travel habits then anything else as the NYPD is very adamant that not only have they not scaled back the searches, but that they will not anytime soon. The cost of this increased protection? Between $1.3 and $1.9 million in overtime a week.
So, after our first week, what have your experiences with the searches been? Good, bad, non-existant? Have they affected your commute?
Photograph by Robert Caplin for The New York Times.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
I finally saw them searching bags, at my home stop -- 36th Ave in Queens on the N -- on Friday. They didn't stop me, I'm sure because I only had a small bag.
I have yet to see any searching going on at any subway stop. I'm also on the N most of the time, so I am guessing that it's not a high-priority line.
They aren't at Union Turnpike station in queens either.
The only sign I've seen of bag searches wasn't actually at a subway at all. It was at Grand Central. I was catching a train upstate and a couple of cops were folding up their little table. I suppose they might've checked bags for people getting off the train on the track next to mine, but I have yet to see any actual bag-checking going on.
There's a cute cop doing searches at the station near me, so a friend of mine bought one of these shirts for me... I'll let you know if they work:
http://www.cafepress.com/suspectpackage
In the few weeks since this has been enacted, I have not been stopped once nor have I seen any searches at all. And I think the Atlantic Avenue Station in Brooklyn and Union Square in Manhattan are high-profile enough.
This is clearly being done for only to comfort out-of-towners and being done in tourist areas... Like Times Square...
Wait! I was in Times Square twice this week and saw nothing there as well.
This feels like more hype than anything else.
Wow, one arrest for illegal fireworks. How much is this costing us again?
I commute home via Port Authority Bus Terminal and Friday was my turn to be stopped. The cop was using one of those manual counters and when I saw him emphasize pushing the button as I neared, I knew it was my turn. No big deal. They're doing their job and it took less than 30 seconds as I showed them the contents of my camera bag. Since I'm Chinese, I guess you can't accuse them of racial profiling!
The only table I've seen set up was on Wednesday at the 116th St stop on the 1. I had a small laptop bag and no officer made any effort to stop me, but it was at rush hour and it was a chaotic scene as people were being shuffled around it with some people being asked over to the table for searches.
The table was not there Thursday or Friday. Maybe it's a travelling show.
The fact that Jack (above) hasn't seen any sort of search table set up at Atlantic Avenue points to the idiocy of this whole scheme. I seem to recall a terrorist plot to attack Atlantic Avenue back in 1997 broken up before it was enacted. Here's a link to a story on emergency.com and another good one at brooklynonline.com.
These officers should be on the trains and platforms, in uniform and undercover, being observant. Sitting four or five officers at a table and hassling a bunch of middle and upper-class students and professional types one day out of seven is worse than useless.
I'm sure the NYPD loves this plan-- it's completely in their favor to take a load off while soaking up overtime, especially for the ones nearing retirement. I'm not against the overtime issue, but the MTA deserves to get the most effective service from the NYPD at that price.
Furthermore, I find it absurd that the MTA should have to foot the bill to the NYPD for this added 'security'. Aren't these both public administrations with state and city funding? I remember a day when there was a separate Transit Police force, but I think it was merged into the NYPD during Giuliani's administration. I don't have all the facts on this, but will do some more googling to see if I can.
sorry for the bold block... my html is a bit rusty. At least the links work.
sorry for the bold block... my html is a bit rusty. At least the links work.
Someone oughtta try this guy's idea: http://www.machination.org/content/2005/07/bag_your_fourth.php
i travel via the lirr monday through friday. the police are so centrally located in this part of penn station that anyone (myself included) can easily walk around them and right onto a train. i've only seen them search people who walk directly in front of them.
hot hairy cunts huge hairy pussy The Rolling Stones postpone a show in the US to allow singer Sir Mick Jagger time to rest his voice...
TV host Oprah Winfrey gives audience members $1,000 (£526) each to donate to a charitable cause...
The Rolling Stones postpone a show in the US to allow singer Sir Mick Jagger time to rest his voice...