Police Ready Sound Weapon For GOP Convention
Associated
Press | August 19 2004
NEW YORK - Forget the megaphones. Police will
have a much more high-tech — and louder — option to make themselves
heard over the din of Manhattan traffic and noisy protesters outside the
Republican National Convention.
It's called the Long Range Acoustic Device,
developed for the military and capable of blasting warnings, orders or anything
else at an ear-splitting 150 decibels.
Authorities on Thursday unveiled a mini-arsenal of devices
and counterterrorism equipment they're getting ready for the convention,
which opens a week from Monday.
The sound machines are being tested at an airfield in a
remote section of Brooklyn along with other devices such as hand-held radiation
detectors — for a possible "dirty bomb" — and mechanical
barriers strong enough to stop a moving vehicle in its tracks.
At the Brooklyn training site on Thursday, police practiced
disarming a truck bomb at a checkpoint. Scores of officers also made mock
arrests of police academy cadets who posed as protesters.
Chanting "no justice, no peace," the cadets surrounded
a bus full of "delegates" before officers in riot gear raced in,
slapped on plastic "flex cuffs" and led them away to vans.
The demonstration was intended to show how the nation's
largest police department hopes "to put a comprehensive security net
over Madison Square Garden and the rest of the city," said Police Commissioner
Raymond Kelly.
"I think you'll see we're prepared."
The department recently bought two of the 45-pound acoustic
sound machines for $35,000 apiece, and plans to mount them on Humvees posted
outside Madison Square Garden. It would mark the first time the instrument
— which can beam sounds for 300 yards or more — has been used
by a civilian force.
"We believe we'd be able to use them in a number of
scenarios," said Paul Browne, the police department's chief spokesman.
Two possible uses cited by Browne: directing crowds to
safety following a terrorist attack or other calamity, and reminding protesters
where they're allowed to march and rally.
The military, which has used the machines in Iraq (news
- web sites), bills them as a "non-lethal weapon" designed to
disperse hostile crowds or ward off potential foreign combatants by delivering
prerecorded warnings in several languages and, if needed, an earsplitting
screeching noise. But police insist the latter feature won't be used at
the convention.
"It's only to communicate in large crowds," Inspector
Thomas Graham of the department's crowd control unit said Thursday.
Graham said police had tried out the device in Times Square,
and found it delivered clear, even sound over four blocks. Decibel readers
will be used to keep the volume at a safe level, he added.
Still, Bill Dobbs of United for Peace and Justice, which
has planned a massive anti-war demonstration on the eve of the convention,
called the sound system "a potential Big Brother nightmare."
Police "are trying to use technology and machinery
to control every aspect of life on the street, rather than relax a little
and let a part of democratic society unfold," he said.
Mobile metal barriers — a variation of those installed
outside government buildings, courthouses and embassies — will form
a series of checkpoints around the arena. Once a bus, truck or car is secured
between two barriers, it will be screened for bombs or other contraband
by cameras that provide real-time video images from underneath.
The department also will deploy a new fleet of motor
scooters to cut through gridlock should trouble arise. Hand-held radiation
detection devices will help officers patrolling the streets and subways
to guard against a "dirty bomb."
