LAPD Helicopter to Get Radiation Detector

The Los Angeles Police Department is using part of a $3 million federal grant to equip a helicopter with a detector capable of detecting a radiological “dirty bomb” brought into the city, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday (see GSN, June 13).

The department also used a portion of the Homeland Security money to buy six hand-held detectors to be carried by officers.

The device to be placed on an LAPD helicopter is the size of a suitcase and capable of detecting gamma rays from potential radiological weapons at a range of 800 feet, according to Police Chief William Bratton.

“Terrorism is all about getting them before they get us,” he said (Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times, Sept. 9).

Meanwhile, the New York Police Department by the end of 2007 plans to start purchasing equipments for its “ring of steel” security system, the New York Daily News reported yesterday.

The system would include license plate readers, roadway barriers and hundreds of cameras intended to protect the lower Manhattan financial district from a terrorist attack.  The department plans to gradually put it into place in 2008.

A system of radiation detectors around the city is being developed alongside the “ring of steel” (see GSN, June 14).  The detectors would be deployed at all major entryways into the city, at distances of up to 50 miles (Alison Gendar, New York Daily News, Sept. 9).

Police officers in Suffolk County on Long Island, N.Y., are set to receive more than 100 small radiation detectors, Newsday reported Friday.

The New York Police Department is providing the detectors, which are capable of detecting radioactive substances inside passing vehicles.  The devices, which could be worn on belts, would be an addition to 400 older detectors now in use in the county.

Terrorists could use Suffolk County as a storage or transportation site for radioactive weapons material on its way to New York City, officials said.

“Every avenue into New York City has got to be covered, and covered thoroughly,” said Suffolk police Special Patrol Bureau commander Deputy Inspector Stuart Cameron (Christine Armario, Newsday, Sept. 7).

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