Miami Was Ruuning a Terror Alertness Campaign Shortly Before the Alpizar Killing

From the Miami Herald:

Posted on Fri, Dec. 02, 2005

Miami takes on an anti-terror campaign
OUR OPINION: BEING PREPARED, ALERT A GOOD DEFENSE AGAINST TERROR

File this one under the heading, No good turn goes unpunished. On Monday, Miami Police Chief John Timoney announced an anti-terrorism campaign that would randomly send police officers -- in uniform and plainclothes -- to sites throughout the city to distribute brochures on preparedness and anti-terror tactics.

The next day, the program was being described in wire-service stories and on radio talk shows as a violation of basic rights, with police demanding that people in malls, banks and sports arenas produce identification or risk arrest. For the record, the program does nothing of the sort. In fact, the program outlined by Chief Timoney is a well-conceived plan to get police and ordinary people to be more alert about the threat of terrorism.

Spontaneous police visits

The idea is to do something about anti-terror complacency -- by both the authorities and the community in general. Officers armed with brochures and months of training in anti-terror tactics make unannounced, spontaneous visits to public venues, sometimes in small groups, at other times in large force. The brochures in three languages -- Spanish, English and Creole -- encourage alertness and reporting of unusual activities. The officers tell owners and managers how to build defenses against terror and harden facilities against attacks.

And, the folks at Prison Planet are naturally very suspicious of this incident and compare it to the outrageous London killing of Charles De Menezes last summer.