Passenger Trains > Amtrak Police: We're off track

Amtrak police — who are supposed to be the lead law-enforcement agency at Penn Station — say they are woefully unprepared for a terrorist attack at the massive transit hub.
The cops have inadequate resources, and there is little coordination between them and other groups, mainly the NYPD, their union said.
“The last time we did a multi-agency drill was about 10 years ago,” David Pearlson, president of the Amtrak Police Labor Committee, told The Post on Friday.
“One of the key issues we’re trying to solve is how to interconnect everybody,’’ he said. “If there’s only one person to talk to at the NYPD, where is that person and where is the radio?”
Meanwhile, only five Amtrak officers typically patrol Penn Station at any given time, Pearlson said. NY Post 4-22-2017



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/17 08:44 by PennPlat.

PennPlat Wrote:
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> Meanwhile, only five Amtrak officers typically
> patrol Penn Station at any given time, Pearlson
> said. NY Post 4-22-2017

I guess it's changed from my experience a few years ago, no?:

"A few weeks ago I took the Adirondack from NYP. To get into the station from 7th Avenue, I had to push my way through a knot of at least six gangbangers who were blocking the escalator entrance (at rush hour). Down in the station, the "Canadian" check-in line was set adjacent to the police service desk. At one point, standing around within a distance of about 50' of this desk, there were 18 uniformed individuals representing the Amtrak police, the National Guard and the TSA."

Ray

MTA (LIRR) has a police office on the lower level next to Track 19. LIRR has been in NYPS for 107 years and have over half the passengers in the whole facility. If Amtrak hasn't figure out how to communicate with them, it's their own fault.

Let me guess.... their solution is for us to give them more money more money more money.

And then more authority to abuse.

How about abolish private companies having police departments?

Michael

Has something to do with money, but mostly involves radio systems that can't talk to each other. Not familiar with the NY set-up but likely involves NYPD on an entirely different system. Buying new radios capable of talking to NYPD and APD/MTA (or carrying a second radio) plus having shared usage agreements costs money. Not like Amtrak has been flush with cash recently. That is what they are getting at in the article.

Gary

Posted from iPhone

Ray_Murphy Wrote:
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> "A few weeks ago I took the Adirondack from NYP.
> To get into the station from 7th Avenue, I had to
> push my way through a knot of at least six
> gangbangers who were blocking the escalator
> entrance (at rush hour). Down in the station, the
> "Canadian" check-in line was set adjacent to the
> police service desk. At one point, standing around
> within a distance of about 50' of this desk, there
> were 18 uniformed individuals representing the
> Amtrak police, the National Guard and the TSA."

Ya gotta remember that in Newspeak, terrorist means a certain ethnicity and religion. The boys from the hood aren't terrorists. The guy who plotted to blow up Target stores to affect the stock price wasn't either.

I did a System Security Plan for a commuter agency. As usual, I did the homework. What happens in the neighborhoods this line runs through? Looking through databases, I find assault, robbery, rape, murder, drug deals, and miscellaneous vandalism - a lot of it. I developed a security plan that addressed those things. The response was ...but you haven't said anything about terrorists to which I replied People are terrified when they go to some of these places. Those ARE the terrorists. The chance of the guys you call The Terrorists showing up is 1/n where n is huge. This other stuff is a daily occurrence.

They accepted my work, but for all I know, they then hired somebody with terrorism experience (which, in consulting means a rank of more than E3 in some military force) to do it right.

TAW

Governor Cuomo sharply criticized Amtrak's taser
Use last week. And said he is sending the NYS Police in to oversee their protocols.

(Spare me the federal police stuff. If they want to file vagrancy, disorderly, etc charges they need authority to do so.)

Posted from Android

How much money did Amtrak give police chief Polly's boy friend over the years for planning, training, and other stuff?

Posted from Android

TAW is correct. Some if the neighborhood terrorists are more heavily armed than "THE Terrorists".

Gary

Posted from iPhone

SN711 Wrote:
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> TAW is correct. Some if the neighborhood
> terrorists are more heavily armed than "THE
> Terrorists".
>
> Gary
>
> Posted from iPhone

They have a better union.

Bob

TAW Wrote:

> They accepted my work, but for all I know, they
> then hired somebody with terrorism experience
> (which, in consulting means a rank of more than E3
> in some military force) to do it right.

You forgot to put "right" in quotation marks.

knotch8 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> TAW Wrote:
>
> > They accepted my work, but for all I know, they
> > then hired somebody with terrorism experience
> > (which, in consulting means a rank of more than
> E3
> > in some military force) to do it right.
>
> You forgot to put "right" in quotation marks.

Nope. Didn't forget. Homework beats BS every time.

TAW

You also have the "You must be this high up in the chain to talk to the other agency." Doesn't make a difference if you are right beside the other person, if your higher up doesn't talk to their higher up it don't mean anything.

Remember that it was determined with 911 that if the different agencies had talked to each other, it might have been prevented.

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/17 17:34 by wabash2800.

It sounds like the Motorola salesman stopped by the Amtrak Police office. Every time the interoperability drum beat starts, it usually means a multi-million dollar contract for Motorola, since they sell the radio systems to most law enforcement agencies.

There are places where interoperability makes complete sense, so that nearby jurisdictions can talk to each other, because they need to do so on a daily basis. In this case, it might be a waste of money. Let's say there is a terrorist event at Penn Station. The NYPD will have a small army there inside of 5 minutes. How much will the 5 Amtrak cops really be needed and will they have to talk to the NYPD by radio? Chances are, they'll be talking in person to a leader in a command post.

Getting back to the original post regarding transportation employees blowing their tops at passengers...

As I see it, the problem is two-fold.

First, I've witnessed an alarming increase in peoples' "me first" attitude (egotist prima donnas?)in which they feel everyone else should cow-tow to them. This has resulted in countless 'demands' by customers and passengers that they get the royal treatment and everyone else can go to... The result is that adults these days act more and more childish in their behaviors and want 'their toys', 'their rights', 'their way' ahead of everyone else. Maybe that works at home, but not in out in public. Then, those that have worked their way up to a 'gate dragon' position realize that the 'mob' is actually a bunch of 2nd graders of maybe kindergarteners that don't know anything (and probably deservedly so) and so they treat the passengers as small kids. It's a boost to their own ego and 'self esteem' that they have such a level of control over the masses. Remember the Hanes commercial that had an employee in an inspector position that remarked "it doesn't say Hanes until -I- say it says Hanes". Gate dragons have achieved that level of authority..."Nobody gets on the train until -I- say they can get on the train". One can only wonder how the Penn Stations of the world could have possibly survived the crush loads they endured during World War II. But then, people in general were more civilized than they are today.

Second, as highways, airplanes, trains, even store checkout lanes get more and more crowded, the number of outbursts has increased dramatically in recent years. Perhaps it's the media making more of a big deal out of it, but in general, the more crowded an environment becomes, the more likely there will be individual rebellions. Many years ago, psychologists proved that theory by observing rat colonies. The more crowded they became, the more likely they were to turn on each other. How many here really enjoy being herded like cattle down a jet way and forced to sit in an 18" wide seat between two 300 pound men? And as an airline gate agent, have to deal with passengers that bring too much on board, or passengers that don't like the seat they've been assigned, and on and on...and day after day after day...on 'short rest' (even Amtrak OBS members have to sometimes make due with 4-5 hours rest between runs in Chicago...it was true 30 years ago and it's still true today. It was confirmed by a former Capitol Limited sleeper attendant that was now working in a lounge car on the NEC a couple of weeks ago. I know from experience that trying to deal with 'the masses' on a daily basis and running on 'short sleep' will catch up to you...even being more grumpy and 'snap' at just about everybody. It only takes one 'push' too far and the internal bomb goes off! When I found myself in that exact position a couple of years ago, I knew I had to leave, and did. Fortunately, my 'bomb' never went off, but I could see it coming.

Todays' business environment has gone from 'comfortable' and being 'like family' to a world of 'sweat shops'. I witnessed the transformation as a contractor at a Fortune 500 company I was at for 4.5 years. Whether it's office workers, factory workers, transportation workers, or even minimum wage laborers, the corporate push (and mentality) has been to increase productivity in the name of more profits. More work, less people, and on and on. In railroad terms, it's cut everything to the bone, especially staffing, where there are no 'breaks' in the steady flow of work. 45 years ago, while working at a fast food restaurant, I was always unhappy when a 'break' in the business occurred (no customers at the window) and the manager would tell one of us to go out and wash tables, pick up the lot, etc. The 5 minute 'mini-break' in the stream of customers was always appreciated. But in business after business, the extra 'slack' in work has been taken away in the name of productivity. So, instead of staffing 10 checkout clerks at the grocery store between 4pm and 7pm and everyone gets a 2-3 minute "breather" several times per hour, now it's 7 clerks with a line at every register that never goes away. The same is true of the gate dragons. While they may have 5 minutes or so between trains at NYP (on a good day), they likely had 10-12 minutes several years ago. Everything works OK until there's a problem...like a derailment almost at a platform that blocks off 8 station tracks. Now it becomes absolute pandemonium dealing with mobs of passengers angry about being delayed and at the same time trying to ensure the right people get on the right train, ie, checking everyones' ticket before they go down the escalator. I have little doubt that the entire staff at NYP pulled out most of their hair if they didn't collapse from total exhaustion in dealing with delayed/late/angry/terrified 'mobs' in an already super-packed-in daily pressure-cooker situation at NYP.

While I certainly don't condone passengers being dragged from their seats or conductors screaming at the passengers, the situation is not likely to improve, in my opinion. Some people can handle more job 'pressure' situations than others and stay calm no matter what. I know I'm not one of them. I think of a short solilique by Patrick Swazye in the movie "Road House" where he was instructing the bouncers how to handle difficult customers..."be nice. Just be nice and ask them to leave. Be nice and tell them to take it outside. Just be nice." Perhaps all those transportation employees that have to deal with the public need to watch that scene from the movie over and over until they get it right.

BRAtkinson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Getting back to the original post regarding
> transportation employees blowing their tops at
> passengers...

Wrong thread.

Ray



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/23/17 03:31 by Ray_Murphy.

There should be by this time interoperability between radios.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/23/17 04:19 by PennPlat.

5 Amtrak cops on duty, yet they still manage to regularly post 4 of them at the lower level gates to block boarding passengers trying to avoid the line upstairs.

I don't think NY Penn, the bus terminal etc are a good deployment for NY national guard. They've been on site for 16 years.

If you need heavily armed, paramilitary trained police, the NYPD and PANYNJ have plenty

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