Mall security growing more vigilant against terrorism

[Khephra]

MANCHESTER, Conn. -- In a suburban mall outside Hartford, past the Abercrombie & Fitch and the cell phone kiosks, tucked away by the Barnes & Noble, a conference room full of shopping mall security guards are learning to spot suicide bombers.

They're being taught blast patterns and behavior profiles, how a bomb is packaged and how a bomber is recruited.

This suburban security force, known more for dispersing loitering teens than for fighting terrorism, is receiving the type of training that just a few years ago was reserved for the Israeli police and the U.S. military.

"If they're carrying a bag, look for that white-knunckle grip," Patrick Chagnon, a Connecticut State Police detective and national counterterrorism instructor, tells the class as the Buckland Hills mall bustles with holiday shoppers carrying bags and boxes of all sizes.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ct--preventingsuicide1128nov28,0,4825835.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wire

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Ok ok not to slam rent a cops

but this sounds more like we hired more, good excuse, to stop shop lifters.

And what kind of specialized training do rent a cops have? Just wonderinig... let alone actual law enforcement or investigative capacity?

It has another name, this is a MOMMY device

[VivaKerry]

3. Well, it isn't as if those rentacops are reservists and nat'l guard...

As a lot of them, I think, were, till they got shipped away to occupy another country.

[VivaKerry]

2. Look for the white knuckle grip! LMAO

If I were in the mall, I would be white knuckling it too.. but only because the air is GROSS in those places, and I would be fiercely trying to get out. Oh, and if dropped my bag, I'd leave it behind.

I would be arrested on suspicion of terrorism if I went in a mall.....

[htuttle]

4. They're getting ready to send them to Iraq

U.S. To Send 30,000 Mall Security Guards to Iraq

WASHINGTON, DC—Pressed for additional troops to police the Iraqi general elections scheduled for January, the Pentagon announced Monday that it will dispatch 30,000 U.S. shopping-mall security guards to the troubled Sunni Triangle region.

"A force of security guards trained to protect retail stores across America will be deployed to the Persian Gulf region," said Maj. Peter Archibald, a spokesman for Central Command. "Once in Iraq, security teams will fortify ground forces and assist them in keeping the peace and quelling any horseplay."

(snip)

http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4045&n=1

[karlrschneider]

6. I'm giving 8 to 5 a few won't notice the link for this

:evilgrin:

[Ima]

7. ROTFLMAO

[Journeyman]

5. My, you'd think that after all the mall suicide bombings lately. . .

security would be in the hands of regular police officers by now. We can only wonder how tight (repressive) security will be once we actually have a mall suicide bomber.

[Mandate My Ass]

8. I've been seeing a growing number of armed supermarket security

forces lately. Try as I might I can't convince myself that the threat of terrorism is the actual cause of this level of expenditure on behalf of the corporate owners....

[seriousstan]

14. Supermarkets get robbed all the time and have to call in the police.

It is called shoplifting.

[TO Kid]

18. Nothing to do with terrorism

Everything to do with the amount of cash in a typical supermarket. The larger ones have more currency on hand than many bank branches.

[karlrschneider]

9. I don't do malls any more, but you guys who do will need to watch out for

bomb-sniffing dog turds in front of the food court.
:evilgrin:

[NNN0LHI]

10. What would have been more terrifying?

19 suicide hijackers all slamming into the WTC and the Pentagon on 911...or 19 seperate sucide bombers walking into Wallmarts in different states once a month over a 19 month period? I think I know the answer.

Don

[troubleinwinter]

11. Hey, mall owners and big stores aint payin' for it...

"His lectures for mall security officials are paid for by the state"

Do these fellas know that they will be first in line for the draft, having been given this training????????

[Deja Q]

12. And only after 3 years since 9/11 did this start! They didn't need to rush

:eyes:

I walk fast and have a white knuckle grip. Why? Generalized Anxiety Disorder.

Should I get a hit with a big-ass sign that flashes the phrase "ANXIOUS NITWIT CAUSED BY CHILDHOOD TRAUMAS WALKING HERE, I'M NOT A TERRORIST SO PLEASE DON'T SHOOT!" to wear?!

Or why not take 2000MG of Zoloft per day? That'll cure the anxiety, but it'll probably cure everything else too. :eyes:

[lonestarnot]

13. Expect the bombers... we're using napalm in Falujah...

Unbelievable! "We're going there to free them." or burn them? We are creating evil!

[Demeter]

15. Wasn't Alan Sherman's Theme Song "Paranoia"?

I'm getting really tired of it all. I was born and raised in Detroit, attended summer school the year of the riots (1967), I've been taught how to not get into trouble, but if trouble comes, I'm not going to sit there and cry OR whine, goddammit! My grandfather survived Lenin, and yours did too, probably. We are a nation of immigrants, and we don't take this kind of garbage from our public servants. That's what they are, and they better start acting like it!

[daleo]

16. They must be doing their job

So far, not one suicide mall-bombing in the last month. Of course there hadn't been any in the last iffy years, but that doesn't prove anything.

[Stinky The Clown]

17. This would be a fucking hoot if it weren't so scary

Can you imagine the *real* terror that will grip this country if one or several shopping malls are hit like they get hit in Israel?

In my mind, this is serious and should have been done long **before** we closed all those barn doors after all those horses escaped .... we all took our shoes off after that nut with the shoe bomb .... like anyone was gunna mimic that.

You want terror? Hit a "safe" place in a red state in middle America. Maybe four or five at the same time to demonstrate the coordinated nature of it.

I know .... the whole story that started this thread simply begs for laughs, what with the visuals conjured up by it. I know I've made a ton of jokes about some of our nation's leaders' collective silliness and sheer stupidity, but in the end it is serious.

[Journeyman]

19. And not but a month ago, I was joking about. . .

suicide mall walkers.

Damn hard to be a satirist in America, that's for sure.

[Voltaire99]

20. This is stage-dressing for the Red State suburban mind

"Why, look how brave I am to be spending my Bush tax cut in the midst of a new kind of war! Look how much my government protects me!"