A Voice in the Wilderness?

July 31, 2005

Assemblyman Calls For NYPD To Use Profiling In War Against Terror

July 31, 2005

A state lawmaker is pressing local authorities to

use ethnic profiling in their fight against terrorism.

Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind is urging the New

York Police Department to use terrorist profiling

when it conducts subway bag searches.

Hikind says that purely random bag checks may be

" politically correct " – but he says they leave

the city's transit system " outrageously vulnerable. "

" There is a terrorist profile for a potential

suicide bomber, and it's not the 75-year-old

grandmother, with sloping shoulders, who has an

oversized tote bag firmly tucked under her arm, "

Hikind said in a statement released Sunday.

" Randomly checking her bag may be politically

correct, but it doesn't cut it when we're trying

to protect millions of mass transit riders. "

" We have to give the NYPD every single tool in

the war on terrorism, " Hikind added. " It's a fact

of life that the London suicide bombers on July

7th and July 21st fit a very precise intelligence profile. "

Authorities believe Islamic extremists were

responsible for both London terror attacks this

month, as was the case in the September 11, 2001,

attacks in the United States.

In response, the NYPD has released a statement

saying: " Racial profiling is illegal, of doubtful

effectiveness, and against department policy. "

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