Can someone confirm or deny this random claim I read on Metafilter?
“After the Spain and London attacks, the NYPD had detectives on planes to those areas to liase between the local authorities and the NYPD. Not the FBI or DHS but the local, cops-in-stupid-scooters NYPD. The NYPD has more native speakers of languages like farsi and arabic than the FBI does (many used to be meter maids)”
It’s certainly true that the NYPD works with foreign police departments to cross-train and share information. They were doing that long before 9/11 too.
I have no idea about the language claims. We do have large populations of native speakers of nearly every common language in this city, though.
NYPD has one of the largest intelligence agencies in the world. It wouldn’t surprise me at all.
Yes, the NYPD sent some officers over to Madrid and London to discuss the attacks and share notes. Mostly because the NYPD can’t depend on federal U.S. authorities to share any useful information in a timely manner.
NYPD works very closely with the FBI counterintelligence and counterterrorism offices. The FBI even has a permanent staff presence at One Police Plaza.
That said, the reason that NYPD sends their own guys to sites of international terrorist incidents is to share information from a local law enforcement perspective. In London, for example, they wanted to know about emergency and evacuation procedures for the Underground, since that information could be useful to the NYPD transit division. And in Madrid, they wanted to learn about security issues involving railroads, seeing as New York is the terminus of the largest commuter railroads on the continent. These are not the same subjects that the FBI is interested in, which concerns itself with the investigation, forensics, and helping to catch the bad guys.
which would be the useful info that the NYPD wants to know about…