Terror underground

There’s something about the notion of having dozens of .40-caliber bullets simultaneously rip through one’s midsection that can make a Taser death seem charming, but the road to freedom can’t be ploughed clear by electric currents alone. And though their grasp on the brutality crown might be tenuous these days, New York City’s finest have nonetheless been chosen to be the USA’s first to help put the “police” in “police state” with the announcement that, beginning next month, officers with automatic rifles and bomb-sniffing canines will be patrolling the NYC subway system.

Funded by new grants issued by the Department of Homeland Security, a number of teams comprised of a dog handler, sergeant and four Kevlar-clad Emergency Service Officers wielding either M-4s or MP5 submachine guns will work 12-hour shifts scouring for terrorist activity at key subway stations, including Penn Station, Times Square and Rockefeller Center.

Subway patrols, including random searches of passengers, were substantially increased in New York after the attacks of September 11, 2001, when terrorists flew winged, subway-like vehicles into the World Trade Center.

by SCOTT SAXON