Boston's FBI boss plans antiterror workshops

[Ian David]

By Shelley Murphy, Globe Staff | March 8, 2007

Every police chief in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Maine, from the smallest hamlets to the biggest cities, will be getting an offer from the FBI to attend counterterrorism workshops aimed at creating a network of officers trained to detect potential threats. according to Warren T. Bamford, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Boston office.

"If we're going to stop a terrorist attack, the person it's going to be stopped by is a police officer or citizen on the street who makes a call when things don't look right," Bamford said yesterday during his first sit-down interview since taking over as head of the FBI's Boston office a month ago. "I'd like to have more information-sharing and make that a two-way street." Officers participating in the training would be briefed on whom to call if a problem arises .

Pointing out that some of the 9/11 hijackers were living in the small town of Greenbelt, Md., in the weeks before the 2001 terrorist attacks, Bamford said the FBI has to ensure that critical information is shared among the bureau, Boston's multiagency Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the hundreds of town and city police departments in the region.

Bamford said his plan, currently in its infancy, is to invite a police officer, analyst, or representative from every police department in the four-state region covered by the FBI's Boston office to attend one- or two-day workshops in which presentations would be made by counterterrorism specialists.

More:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/03/08/hubs_fbi_boss_plans_antiterror_workshops/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+--+City%2FRegion+News

[frylock]

1. learn the finer points of exploding innocous items like lite-brites..

and pedestrian meters.