Culture of Fear
Jun. 30th, 2006 08:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
40cakesI think this is made a little more frightening/funny/sad that I just watched Brazil twice (technically).
When I got to the train station, the curved area of the sidewalk where cars can stop for pickups and dropoffs is full of no less than one ambulance, two police cars, and two police motorcycles. Inside the parking lot, there are more police cars, including a few police SUVs, at least one saying "Sherriff" on the side. At the base of the stairs are two officers in full bulletproof/protective regalia, each wielding a machine gun. I paid for my parking and asked one of the machine gun fellows, "Wot's all this then?"
"Training exercise, nothing to worry about."
At the top of the stairs, a grim-faced officer handed me a yellow card that said, "The terror alert has been elevated to YELLOW; If you see something, say something; We're all in this together," etc.
While I was paying for parking, a woman was talking to a different officer, and I heard him say, "I don't know why that guy is taking pictures." Maybe it's because you've flooded a quiet little train station (you can't even get to it unless you're on a local train) with enough cops to make even NYC commuters stop and take notice?
I wondered on the train what the Hell kind of training exercise it was. Most of the cops were just hanging out, leaning on their cars, drinking coffee. Chatting in the nice weather. No one was searching bags. Maybe it was like a fire drill - you only learn how to walk outside in straight lines. They rounded up the cops and taught them how to go to the train station and be useless in the face of danger or something. Yes, they were handing out the little alert cards, but that's not something that requires that big of a chaperone. Not like they've never just had someone sit at a table on the platform and hand them out.
More surprising was that there was no one in Penn Station. No extra cops, no extra security. Regular ol' NYC. Huh.
When I got to the train station, the curved area of the sidewalk where cars can stop for pickups and dropoffs is full of no less than one ambulance, two police cars, and two police motorcycles. Inside the parking lot, there are more police cars, including a few police SUVs, at least one saying "Sherriff" on the side. At the base of the stairs are two officers in full bulletproof/protective regalia, each wielding a machine gun. I paid for my parking and asked one of the machine gun fellows, "Wot's all this then?"
"Training exercise, nothing to worry about."
At the top of the stairs, a grim-faced officer handed me a yellow card that said, "The terror alert has been elevated to YELLOW; If you see something, say something; We're all in this together," etc.
While I was paying for parking, a woman was talking to a different officer, and I heard him say, "I don't know why that guy is taking pictures." Maybe it's because you've flooded a quiet little train station (you can't even get to it unless you're on a local train) with enough cops to make even NYC commuters stop and take notice?
I wondered on the train what the Hell kind of training exercise it was. Most of the cops were just hanging out, leaning on their cars, drinking coffee. Chatting in the nice weather. No one was searching bags. Maybe it was like a fire drill - you only learn how to walk outside in straight lines. They rounded up the cops and taught them how to go to the train station and be useless in the face of danger or something. Yes, they were handing out the little alert cards, but that's not something that requires that big of a chaperone. Not like they've never just had someone sit at a table on the platform and hand them out.
More surprising was that there was no one in Penn Station. No extra cops, no extra security. Regular ol' NYC. Huh.
