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NYC terrorism expert urges citizens, police to be aware and alert
YOUNGSTOWN
The terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif., last Dec. 2 that killed 14 people was the signal that the United States is under attack, says Raymond Kelly, former New York City police commissioner and a leading expert on national security.
The best attitude that citizens and police can have to thwart terrorism is “be aware, be alert and look at the world through a prism of terrorist attacks in Paris, Belgium and San Bernardino,” said Kelly in an interview before presenting Youngstown State University’s Skeggs Lecture on Tuesday at Stambaugh Auditorium.
About 500 attended the public presentation at 7 p.m., which was preceded by small-group presentations at 4 p.m. to YSU Police Academy cadets and at 5 p.m. to local law-enforcement officers and Marines, where he presented departmental awards to three YSU police officers.
Kelly, a combat Marine of the Vietnam War, has 50 years in public service, including 14 as head of the NYC Police Department, where he created the first counterterrorism bureau in any municipal police department in the United States.
Noting that New York City is the top terrorist target in the world, he established a new global intelligence program and stationed NYPD detectives in 11 foreign cities to gather information.
Also, Kelly dedicated extensive resources to establish a Real Time Crime Center, a facility that searches millions of computer records and puts investigative leads into the heads of detectives in the field.
“We needed to reinforce counterterrorism efforts to protect New York City to supplement what the federal government does,” he said.
“The 1993 terrorist attacks in New York City should have been a wake-up call. But it wasn’t, and we paid a horrific price on Sept. 11, 2001,” Kelly said.
Additionally, under his leadership, the NYC Police Department lowered conventional violent crime by 40 percent, making it a city in which people were no longer afraid to leave their homes and tourists no longer afraid to visit.
“Information is the name of the game. The more quickly information is put into police hands, the better,” Kelly said.
Today, that means technology and education.
Kelly, who was in Youngstown on a book-signing tour for his new book, “Vigilance: My Life Serving America and Protecting Its Empire City,” said modern law-enforcement jobs are more demanding and complex.
He said police go into places where people don’t necessarily like police.
Police are often the bearers of bad news.
“We have to tell people that their loved ones are injured or killed, give them a traffic ticket, or use force, sometimes deadly force,” he said.
Kelly recommended that police officers should have at least a bachelor’s degree to help develop a broader perspective, expertise in technology for quick dissemination and reception of information, and more scenario training to know what to do and how to defuse certain situations.