Bellingham on homeland security
by Jonathan Bradley
When the Department of Homeland Security sent Bellingham Police Chief Randall
Carroll moon suits and SCUBA tanks to help fight terrorism in the months following
the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, he sent them back.
For Carroll, it was an example of Homeland Security's misplaced priorities. The department, Carroll said, focuses too much on responding to attacks after they happen rather than working to prevent them.
"If we put our efforts upfront.(into prevention), we don't have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars fixing it," he said. "We can't prevent 100 percent (of attacks). but I think we've kind of got it backwards."
Washington state is, however, adopting one of the preventive measures of which Carroll speaks. Homeland Security has allowed police at all levels throughout the state to pool their resources to take a new approach to fighting terrorism, focusing on sharing and analyzing information gathered by police.
This newly approved "integrated intelligence system," called the Washington State Joint Analytical Center, is a cooperative proposal of a number of Washington police organizations and the FBI, according to a Washington Military Department Emergency Management Division document.
The center would gather information from departments around the state and have professional analysts examine it, Carroll said, allowing for better communication between departments.
The center would gather information from departments around the state and have professional analysts examine it, Carroll said, allowing for better communication between departments.
"If we have something going on in Spokane, Bellingham may not know about it," he said. "Right now, we don't have a comprehensible way to let Bellingham and Spokane know what (each other) are working on."
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