The hotels also will
receive help from critical response vehicles
� convoys of police cars usually with 50
officers, but with as many as 100, that
arrive without warning in a surge. They park
their vehicles and rapidly deploy in a show
of force and as a disruptive tactic.
Some of the hotels also
will be patrolled by heavily armed NYPD
Hercules units. Meanwhile, the NYPD Nexus
unit, which works closely with communities
and industry, is informing security at city
hotels of the patterns and tactics used in
Jordan and what they might do to heighten
awareness at their facilities.
Much of that
information comes from an Arabic-speaking
NYPD sergeant in Jordan who is on bombing
scenes with Jordanian authorities. That
officer has been able to file at least six
reports to the NYPD's counter-terrorism
division. The information gets culled for
relevance and shared with the hotels by
detectives from the Nexus unit.
At a lunch a year
ago with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg
and NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly,
Jordan's King Abdullah penned an
intelligence-sharing agreement that placed
the New York detective in Jordan and a
Jordanian detective in New York, according
to police in both countries. The agreement
took effect on Nov 1.
'More
Nervous'
Security at city
hotels initially was boosted after the
Jordan attacks Wednesday evening � though
there does not appear to be a specific
threat against the city.
"I think there is
going to be an increase in verification of
one [or each] individual to bring luggage
in, to make sure that luggage just isn't
left in the lobby, but that it's accounted
for," George Bauries of Criterion Strategies
Inc., an emergency management consultant,
told WABC-TV in New York.
A noticeable police
presence in New York's Times Square
neighborhood Wednesday gave tourists
something else to see in the Big Apple. For
some, it wasn't exactly a comforting sight.
"It doesn't make me
feel safer," one tourist told WABC-TV. "It
makes me feel more nervous that they are
actually outside the hotel."
But others felt
differently.
"It's great to see
them around," another tourist said, "and
their presence � gives more feeling of
security."