Authorities' Awareness Heightened Since 9/11

Before Sept. 11, 2001, not many Americans were familiar with the term “homeland security.”

Yet now, a decade later, homeland security is part of Americans’ everyday routine. Americans face extra security at airports and other public places.

The integrity of forms of identification, such as driver's licenses, have become the core of homeland security. And there are more subtle reminders of the increased awareness about the possibility of terrorism, such as concrete barriers placed in strategic places at public places.

Law enforcement agencies, at the federal, state and municipal levels, are at the front lines of homeland security. And though federal and state agencies have taken the lead in the fight against the threat of terror, especially in urban areas, law enforcement officers at the local level also play an important role.

Dr. Richard Celeste, a former Bridgewater police officer who is now director of the Somerset County Police Academy at Raritan Valley Community College in Branchburg, recalled the reaction of the recruits 10 years ago when they learned of the Sept. 11 attacks.

“There was a definite sense of fear,’’ he said. “It was something we had never thought about."

But in the coming weeks and years, police officers concentrated on the possibility that terrorism, either foreign or domestic, may strike in suburban Somerset County, less than 40 miles from Ground Zero.

That prompted a change in law enforcement attitudes and policies, Celeste said. As an example, Celeste said, the way police respond to a terrorist situation, like a gunman holding hostages inside a school, evolved.

Police began training and practicing how to go inside the building and handle the situation. The “old way was to just sit outside and wait,” Celeste said.

Though police officers were always trained to be aware of their surroundings, after Sept. 11, police officers had to develop a heightened awareness of what is going on around them, Celeste said.

The most important task, he said, is to maintain that higher level of awareness, he said, because it is only natural that the further you go from a traumatic event such as Sept. 11, the more you tend to become more relaxed and less vigilant.

In the wake of the concerns brought by Sept. 11, police officers received more training in cultural diversity, Celeste said. This promoted greater understanding of the increasingly diverse population of Somerset County and re-enforced the idea “that people come in all shapes and colors,” Celeste said.

The academy not only teaches fresh recruits law enforcement, but offers veteran officers a number of  courses so they can be aware of the latest trends, including the threats posed by domestic terrorists, Celeste said.

One of the most crucial parts of homeland security is preserving the integrity of personal identification. In May, the state unveiled a new and enhanced driver’s license.

“The driver’s license is no longer a simple card that proves you are legally entitled to operate a motor vehicle,” said Ray Martinez, chief administrator of the N.J. Motor Vehicle Administration. "It is now the primary source of identification for most Americans and a source document for many other pieces of identification."

The new license has more than 25 features designed to reduce fraud and abuse through cutting-edge technology and other features that are only known to the Motor Vehicle Commission and law enforcement.

That’s why the Somerset County Sheriff’s Office has stationed an officer at the state’s Motor Vehicle Commission office on Roosevelt Place in Somerville.

Not only does the presence of the officer increase the security at the office, the officer is also immediately available when a problem arises or a clerk suspects irregularities when someone is applying for official credentials.

The presence of the sheriff’s officer has led to an increase in the number of arrests on charges of trying to obtain documents by fraudulent means.

Another change has been increased security at the county courthouse on North Bridge Street in Somerville.

Now all visitors and employees, including Superior Court judges, have to pass through a metal detector at the entrance. No longer is there separate access to the historic courthouse. Sheriff’s officers man the detector and search an individual’s belongings when necessary.

At the entrance of both the courthouse and the county administration building, concrete barriers were installed after Sept. 11 to beef up security at both facilities.

Somerset County Sheriff Frank Provenzano did not return requests for comment. 

The decade since 9/11 has also seen a tremendous increase in the ways that police officers use technology.  While those developments may not be a direct result of  9/11, more money flowing into police departments from federal and state sources has made it easier for local police departments to implement this new technology.

While mobile computers in police cars were rare in 2001, now most police cars in Somerset County have them, allowing patrol officers to immediately look up license plates and check the identity of people.

The Bridgewater Police Department has a license plate reader, which uses cameras and computers to quickly capture large numbers of photographs of license plates, convert them to text and then rapidly compare them to a large list of plates of interest, including wanted persons, stolen vehicles, suspended and expired vehicle registrations.

The system can identify a target license plate within seconds of contact with it, allowing law enforcement to identify target vehicles that might otherwise be overlooked.

One of the lessons learned from Sept. 11 is the importance of establishing and maintaining a communications system among first-responders. Federal grants have allowed many Somerset County municipalities to upgrade their communication capabilities.