Since 9/11, authorities have urged local police to become the front line in domestic counter-terrorism, gathering street-level intelligence about crimes and suspicious activities that could foretell another attack.
But for various reasons it has not worked out that way. The nation's 17,000 local law enforcement agencies have gathered information in their own haphazard ways or not at all, authorities and experts say. Most police officers, after all, are trained to gather evidence to prove crimes, not to cultivate and analyze intelligence to prevent terrorists from striking.
Now, however, a Los Angeles Police Department official has devised a solution that is considered so cheap, so easy to implement and so innovative that federal authorities in Washington are considering making it a national model for all police departments.
Cmdr. Joan T. McNamara, who heads the LAPD's Counter-Terrorism and Criminal Intelligence Bureau, revised the investigative report that officers must fill out for crimes, real or suspected, adding a section where they can describe in detail any kind of potential terrorist-related activity. In addition, officers are now required to fill out the forms if they observe suspicious activity, whether or not a crime was committed.
Until now, no one thought to codify the suspicious activities usually associated with terrorism in order to look for patterns and trends, McNamara said in an interview.
In recent months, all LAPD officers have been receiving training in what kinds of suspicious activities to look for, based on a 65-item checklist that McNamara and her small staff drew up. The checklist includes indications that someone conducted surveillance on a government building, tried to acquire explosives, openly espoused extremist views or abandoned a suspicious package.
McNamara also included a box on the form that must be checked if any of those suspicious activities are listed in the report. If the box is checked, a copy of the form is forwarded to specially trained analysts in her intelligence bureau, who then enter the information into a database that can be used by other law enforcement agencies.
McNamara, a 26-year veteran and highly decorated police commander, is new to counter-terrorism. After making a name for herself in narcotics investigations, she was brought in to head the high-profile counter-terrorism bureau last April by Deputy Chief Michael Downing. He said he wanted "fresh eyes" to see how the LAPD could better institutionalize counter-terrorism within the entire police force, from the front line officers up the chain of command.
