WASHINGTON — After last week’s terror attacks in Paris and a recent ISIS video seems to threaten terror attacks on D.C., Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier says that her force is reacting in ways the public can see and in ways they can’t.
“A lot of our security measures are very visible, and they’re designed to be just that,” Lanier told WTOP on Thursday.
“People feel safer because we have a much stronger visible presence,” she says.
This includes officers in “different types of posts and different security postures across the city.”
The force also has “a lot of things in place that are not as visible, that are very effective.”
In New York, police have announced they’ll hire 1,000 to 1,500 more people to fight against terrorism.
While Lanier says she’d love to hire 1,500 more officers, D.C. isn’t New York.
“We have a flexibility that a lot of other jurisdictions don’t have.”
The presence of lots of different law enforcement agencies in the nation’s capital gives the D.C. police “so many partners,” Lanier says.
Her force is a partner in six or seven joint task forces “that we can ramp up very quickly and move out in periods of elevated threat,” she says, adding that police have done just that several times over the past few years.
The most important thing the public can do, Lanier says, is follow the old rule: If you see something, say something.
“It really is the most important rule for the public,” Lanier says.
“It’s really just ‘be vigilant’ — not alter [your] way of life, but make sure you’re paying attention to things going on, and communicate that with police.”
The police go out to various parts of the District a couple of times a year to educate people on how they can help, Lanier says, and they might take “extra trips to educate our business community, our hospitality industry, our service workers, our government agencies, to be our eyes and ears for us.”
While a recent ISIS video means that people need to be on their guard, Lanier says it’s all part of life in the nation’s capital.
“We’ve all known since 9/11 that Washington is a target … for many, many years.”
The current situation is “not much different from what it has been over the past several years. We know we’re a target.”
