With Mumbai in mind, NYPD goes for a new training programme

New York, Feb 16 (PTI) Wary of copycat attacks in New
York after the Mumbai carnage, US' largest police department
here has launched a counterterrorism initiative training
officers in tactics for close quarters combat and rescuing
hostages in hotels and other high-rise buildings.

As part of the initiative, the famed New York Police
Department(NYPD) is training a new team of officers with
semi-automatic rifles loaded with armour-piercing bullets.

Post-26/11, the department decided to train about
130 reinforcements from its Organized Crime Control Bureau
with Ruger Mini-14s in case terrorists even larger than
the one that struck India's financial capital struck here.
Police academy recruits will get a tutorial on how to secure
assault weapons recovered in combat situations or, in a pinch,
how to shoot them, the department said.

The NYPD's 400 Emergency Service Unit officers already
can carry fully automatic Colt M4 rifles which are described
as "the weapon of the 21st century soldier."

The NYPD also has begun videotaping the interiors of
large hotels so emergency service officers can learn their
layouts and match the guiles of terrorists who, as in Mumbai,
may have done surveillance. It is also exploring ways to
disrupt cell phone service "in a pinpointed way against
terrorists who are using them."

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has already said there
were similarities between Mumbai and New York -- country's
financial capital, densely populated, multi-cultural
metropolis, a hub for entertainment industry, and also a port
city.

"Terrorists are thinking creatively about new tactics,"
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said recently. "So must we,"
he said weeks after the NYPD rushed investigators to India to
see if there were any security lessons for New York.

Local authorities believe New York City could be a
potential target for terrorists.

Security authorities in the US are struck by how the 10
gunmen calmly caused so much mayhem by relying on cell-phone
communication and Chinese knockoff AK-47s.

Kelly has also said he is looking into technologies that
can disrupt cell phones and other communication devices of the
terrorists in a pinpointed manner at the time of such attacks.

"When lives are at stake, law enforcement needs to find
ways to disrupt cell phones and other communications in a
pin-pointed way against terrorists using them," Kelly told
members of the US Senate last month during a Congressional
hearing on lessons learnt from Mumbai terrorist attacks.

Kelly said the NYPD has taken the Mumbai attack very
seriously and already has had several round of exercises based
on the lessons learnt from India's 9/11.

NYPD has also visited several major hotels to document
the walkthroughs on video camera, filming entrances and exits,
lobbies, unoccupied guest rooms, and banquet halls.

"We plan to use the videos as training tools. Further
hundreds of private security cameras were now being monitored
at a newly opened coordination center in downtown Manhattan."