A young prankster may have just brought a major security vulnerability to light in New York City.
NYPD are currently searching for an unidentified, 20-something-year-old man with wavy blond hair responsible for throwing two smoke bombs into the outdoor dining area of two posh New York restaurants.
Cameras show the man popping out of a sidewalk subway hatch used for emergency exits and lobbing what actress and restaurant patron at the time, Rose McGowan, tweeted as ?two red smoke bombs? into Da Silvano and Bar Pitti restaurants.
Emergency responders use the hatches to evacuate subway passengers when necessary.
Security video shows smoke quickly filling the area, prompting diners to scurry away. Thankfully, however, the NYPD states that no one was injured.
While Friday’s stunt may have ultimately been innocent fun, it does raise an alarm bell regarding one of the Big Apple’s many security vulnerabilities. One expert expressed concern that someone would be able to both enter and escape through the emergency subway hatches without being detected or captured. It’s not much of a leap, after all, to imagine something more harmful than smoke bombs being lobbed at innocent civilians in such a scenario.
Fmr. FBI agent and ABC News contributor, Brad Garrett, offered, however, that authorities could be thankful the incident only amounted to a juvenile stunt and that its occurrence might be used as an opportunity for educating themselves for how the city could both protect itself from such vulnerabilities, as well as respond should any unfortunate, violent incidents penetrate security in the future.
Garrett stated regarding the smoke bombs:
?It’s clearly a wake-up call. When you get into a city of the size of New York or even just the one borough of Manhattan, you literally cannot cover every single avenue. You do the best you can and try to learn from every situation and figure out where you have a vulnerability.?
As of Saturday, the New York Police Department Public Information Office stated that it had no updates regarding the case, nor did they know as of yet whether additional security would be put into place around subway emergency exits.
One would hope they will, though, considering the media coverage the stunt has garnered. There might as well be a neon sign pointing to the emergency exits now. After all, what is the point of taking note of security vulnerabilities if nothing is going to be done about them. Surely some solution can be had that does not amount to stationed manpower at each exit and hatch. New York does not need a cop on every square inch of Manhattan, only the right kind of ideas, communication, and coordination that will help effectively secure the city.
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H/T ABC News
(Gifs courtesy NYPD)
Dylan Hock is a poet, novelist, professor and social activist. He is published in a number of little magazines and has an essay on the muzzling of Ezra Pound included in the anthology ?Star Power: The Impact of Branded Celebrity?. Follow him on Ello, Google+, LinkedIn, RebelMouse and Goodreads. Hire him for freelance writing and editing work on Elance.
