March 28, 2024
Column

Friend, foe? Alert colors 4th mood

If you’re a properly vigilant American, as your government constantly warns you to be in this new age of terror, you’re probably aware of the latest report on what we should be suspicious of over the Fourth of July weekend.

Federal officials say they have no specific, credible intelligence about an attack over the holiday, and so have chosen not to raise the color-coded alert to orange.

But the FBI is nevertheless urging police nationwide to beef up patrols to monitor the large assemblies in their communities and for the rest of us to keep a suspicious eye out for people wearing loose, ill-fitting clothing that might conceal weapons and to be wary of potential suicide bombers who might be trying to pass themselves off as homeless people.

OK, so what exactly are we good citizens supposed to do with this newest cautionary advice as we gather for our parades and fireworks displays, especially after Attorney General John Ashcroft’s contention this week that al Qaida was 75 percent to 90 percent ready to attack again?

Should we ignore it and simply hope for the best, just as most of us have ignored the Department of Homeland Security’s recommendation to make a family emergency kit by filling a trash can with 72 hours worth of food, water, batteries, duct tape and other survival supplies?

Or should we all whip out our cell phones and call 911 to report suspicious people in our midst, and then let the cops determine whether that shady character in the crowd is concealing a bomb under his lumpy, ill-fitting sweat shirt or maybe just a harmless fanny pack?

The sad fact is, few of us can really know how to reconcile the troubling dichotomy of living on high alert under the shadowy threat of terrorism while also going about our business as usual. Even our local police have a hard time clearing up the confusion for the people they’re sworn to protect.

“Obviously the switchboard would light up if everyone in the city heeded the warnings and reported all the people they saw wearing loose, ill-fitting clothing,” said Deputy Chief Peter Arno of the Bangor Police Department. “In Maine, that’s kind of like saying we should be alert for people wearing Santa Claus suits around Christmastime. The terror alert is definitely a tough concept to get your arms around.”

His department got its first real sense of that anxiety-driven confusion when the threat of anthrax-tainted packages was dominating the nation’s headlines.

“Back then, we were deluged with calls from people about mailed packages,” Arno said. “None of it was anthrax, but some of the packages did have a legitimate white powder on them. Now, whenever the alert level is raised, we get calls from people asking us for information about what they should be looking for, and we encourage that.

“Recently, a concerned citizen e-mailed us to say he heard that someone had bought $30,000 worth of UPS uniforms,” Arno said. “It turned out to be a hoax, but it could have been valid. As crazy as some of these warnings may seem, they do remind people that they should have a heightened sense of what’s going on out there.”

Arno said police typically urge concerned callers to use common sense and their familiarity with their surroundings in determining what is genuinely worthy of suspicion.

While people wearing baggy clothing are not necessarily uncommon in Bangor, a person taking photos of the Webber Oil tanks or intently sketching the layout of the Air National Guard base might be an unusual enough sight to merit a phone call to the police.

“In a community of this size, people can have a good sense of what’s normal and what’s not,” Arno said. “You probably know the business people and the people who usually walk through your neighborhood. The city is small enough for people to know what should arouse suspicion, so we leave it up to them to determine what’s a reasonable concern. There is a tendency to get complacent, though, and to think we can’t be vulnerable here. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Local law enforcement, he said, is now so mindful of even the remotest possibility of a terrorist-related activity that community policing may never be the same again.

The department has received about $500,000 in Homeland Security funds, he said, which is being used to purchase a containment device to transport dirty bombs as well as a multiuse command vehicle that could serve as the information center for police, FBI, U.S. Customs and other agencies in the city.

“Our job has changed so much since 9-11 that not a day goes by that the threat of terrorism is not part of our thinking,” Arno said. “But we just try to maintain a proper perspective on it, keep it as real as we can, while also understanding how to minimize the damage if something did ever happen.”


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