Officer Buttinsky

Another lazy post-Labor Day evergreen generated from the NYPD public relations department:

With nearly twice as many officers as the FBI, the NYPD has overhauled its mission since the destruction of the twin towers.

It now works on the premise that the city must fend for itself in the war against terrorism even if that means taking on responsibilities traditionally handled by the feds.

“What we are trying to do to a certain extent is forecast and predict and prepare ourselves for eventualities that may occur,” Kelly said.

“The operating premise is, get us any bit of information that can help better protect New York. We were not getting that information.”

The NYPD intelligence division — run by a former CIA spymaster, David Cohen — is the first of its kind in the country. It now has detectives permanently stationed at nine foreign posts, including Interpol’s headquarters in Lyon, France, as well as London, Israel, Singapore, Madrid, the Dominican Republic and Amman, Jordan.

“We have the troops on the ground,” Kelly said.

The commissioner noted that the intelligence division and counterterrorism bureau have helped prevent at least four attempts by terrorists to attack the city since 9/11, including a plot to smuggle weapons into the city by a Pakistani-born New Yorker.

. . .

Following the lead of many other countries, he armed elite cops with machine guns and rolled out the NYPD’s imposing Hercules teams to safeguard city landmarks, financial centers and transit hubs in 2002.

Emphasis added because — honestly — doesn’t anyone else find it weird that a local police force seems like it’s conducting counterterrorism operations? It sounds like CTU*!

What’s more, some are unhappy with the overly aggressive NYPD:

There is a difference, too, in how information is shared, with American law enforcement officials typically communicating much more fully with the news media and other agencies than their British counterparts do.

In one case in particular, last year after the London bombings when New York police officers traveled there to pitch in, the different working style created tension. British police and intelligence officials complained to the F.B.I., C.I.A. and State Department after the New York officers, used to speaking more openly, gave interviews to the press in London and sent information on to their headquarters in New York, where officials then held a news conference with some details about the investigation, according to one senior American official involved in the relationship with British agencies.

I don’t want to be a wet blanket — Jack Bauer on the streets of New York! I love 24! — but it’s probably just a matter of time before something bad happens.

*And I don’t think a real “CTU” is legal in the U.S. as things are now . . .