The Protectors of Grand Central Station

In the past couple of months I have become concerned noticing the lax security in what is an extremely attractive terrorist target that attracts an enormous number of people each day, and one particularly near and dear to my heart because it parenthetically, includes me at least twice a day.

What I’ve noticed is that hardly a day goes by when I don’t see clumps of 4 or more of the supposed “protectors” all gathered in one place for what appears to be much more of a social interaction, than a well coordinated exercise in protecting this treasured icon of American freedom and commerce, and leaving other important points of egress with no eyes watching.

I have on occasion approached them to ask why, as well as who assigned them to such a strategy? Perhaps I’d suggest, it was an attempt to throw the enemy off guard with their seeming indifference for the crucial importance of their mission, while secretly there was an army of under-cover operatives strategically situated to pounce should the enemy make such a mis-calculation…could that be it??? Not surprisingly, this line of questioning has not been met with much enthusiasm. The National Guards folk are clearly not used to such scrutiny and pretty much confine their responses to much hemming and hawing. So in those cases I’ve just left it with thank you’d for their service but request for more a more commonsensical approach to their deployment. In the case of the police, however, the notion that I would question them is met with pure, and unmistakable hostility.

They even have a pat and consistent response. “Sir”, they say. “Have you attended the police academy?” As though that says it all! After hearing that same response from various officers I began to inquire back, “so since you all seem to respond with the exact same answer, may I assume that they actually teach you that response to civilian inquiries at the Academy???”while I did receive some satisfaction from coming up with that come-back, it was decidedly ineffective in achieving my actual goal, that of making sure our Grand Central Station is as safe as possible! In the end, I decided to start taking photos to record these klatches, which you can view on this blog entry.

Here's a case of four National Guards during rush hour standing together, mostly looking at and chatting with each other, without the remotest sense of intensity about the mission they're on. Meanwhile other entry points are left unmanned. A frighteningly, sad strategy for protecting GC.

The Protectors ?

Here's five of them in total "never, never land" about what's going on in the main terminal, except for the officer with the dog who is quite interested in me taking the picture, but who moments before was also in the conversation with the others.

Here's a case of 5 police officers, two with dogs, standing around at the bottom of the main terminal escalator chatting with each other during rush hour, while meanwhile there are zero officers watching any of the other main entry points. This is an unbelievably, poorly conceived strategy for protecting such an important symbol and such a vulnerable target. From just my observations passing through a couple of times a day, there are altogether too many times when these supposed "protectors" are standing around in clumps entertaining each other rather than maintaining the vigil they are there for!

The Protectors of Grand Central Station Update

Here's another case. I guess they're protecting each other, but certainly not doing much in the way of providing vigil for the safety of Grand Central and those present if and when. Who is in charge here?

The Protectors of Grand Central Station

The Protectors of Grand Central Station

The Protectors of Grand Central Station

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