Security in the Age of Terrorism
It’s interesting that there are some days when traveling about in London you see almost no police, and other times what seems to be all of them. I haven’t quite figured out if there is a schedule or anything to it, and have assumed that it is probably because there is a reason for them to be out and about. I don’t hear anything on the news or read anything in the papers that explains it, but there are times when the police presence is quite noticeable indeed. I don’t really worry about it because I would like to hope, at least, that they are acting on information I don’t have to keep us all safe.
Still, it can be a bit jarring to suddenly see armed police and dogs (not that the dogs have been armed yet) milling about transportation stops. I haven’t seen too much other than a heightened presence, but have heard tales from friends of seeing men laid out on the ground with handcuffs whilst bags are searched.
My sister took a stroll this afternoon to enjoy the respite of sunshine we are having. At Canary Wharf she saw a lot of police searching people’s bags and snapped a few pictures. She stopped when she noticed police checking people’s photos on their digital cameras and became a bit paranoid about the attention she was drawing by using hers.
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June 3rd, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Hey Mate,
What can I say? There’s been a large police presence on out capitals streets for many years… the IRA were bombing the UK years and years ago!
As for armed police…. well, at least the IRA used to leave telephone warnings so civilian casualties were kept to minimum… these days, terrorists don’t afford us that luxury.
June 3rd, 2007 at 6:40 pm
Hey Lumpy, thanks for stopping by. It’s good to hear from you. We need to organize a herf before the smoking ban takes effect.
I can understand why the cops are doing it. And as for the armed police, it simply stands out to me because the vast majority of them are unarmed. But I’m all for stopping the bad guys before they do something dastardly.
March 7th, 2009 at 6:48 am
The world we live in requires an armed response. An unarmed police officer is nothing more then a spectator should there ever be a suicide bombing attempt.