CHICAGO – SUMMIT SECURITY

BY DON BABWIN

CHICAGO (AP) _ A day after President Barack Obama announced that his hometown would host simultaneous NATO and G-8 summits next spring, few details were available about who would attend and how many protesters might follow. But former U.S. Secret Service Agent Joseph LaSorsa said there is one thing that’s certain. “You can safely say that during that time Chicago is going to be the safest city on the planet,” said LaSorsa, a security expert with his own company in Florida.

Talk to LaSorsa and others, and the consensus is that by the time Obama and new Mayor Rahm Emanuel welcome world leaders to their hometown, countless security measures big and small will already have been put in place in a city already known for one of the most extensive camera surveillance systems in the country.

From tracking the movements of terrorists to crawling down manholes to ensure explosives aren’t hidden to removing newspaper racks _ or anything else that could be thrown, set fire to or used to hide a bomb _ officials will have spent millions of dollars and thousands of hours planning for any threat they can imagine.

Nothing is too big in an effort that will involve world leaders, hundreds of entourage members and dozens of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. And nothing is too small, as Chicago Police showed before the Democratic National Convention in 1996 when a commander sent crews to smear grease on statues in Grant Park to make sure that protesters could not climb them, as they did during the violence-marred 1968 Democratic National Convention.

The stakes could not be higher for the nation’s third largest city which will become the first American city other than Washington, D.C. to host the NATO Summit.

“There’s always some terrorist group that would love to get a bomb in there or assassinate a national leader,” said John Thompson, a security expert in Canada.

It’s almost certain that the summits will be a magnet for protesters, something Seattle learned in 1999 when 50,000 protesters shut down meetings of the World Trade Organization as police fired tear gas and rubber bullets during rioting that resulted in 600 arrests and $3 million in property damage.

Still, the summits are a coup for new Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who in his effort to pull the city out of desperate financial straits, pushed for hosting the meetings with Vice President Joe Biden when Biden attended his inauguration in May.

“From a city perspective, this will be an opportunity to showcase what is great about the greatest city in the greatest country,” said Emanuel, who added that the summits offer what he called an “unprecedented” chance for economic investment and job creation for the city.

To pull it off, though, millions of dollars will have to be spent. That was Georgia’s experience when it hosted the G-8 Summit in several locations in 2004.

“There were more public safety resources committed to it than have been seen in anything for us going back to the Civil War,” said Sgt. David Gay of the Savannah Chatham Metropolitan Police Department.

Crews were dispatched to ring key buildings with fences, put up concrete barriers or build checkpoints. Investigators were dispatched to check out the smallest tip or keep tabs on protesters, like the detectives who showed up at a real estate office to look at the contract a protest group had signed to rent a conference hall. And there were the training sessions in which officers were drilled on spotting suspicious things like water bottles that contained ice _ which, if hurled at a police officer could cause serious injury.

Gay said they were also trained to be to look closely to see which protesters walked stiffly or wore clothes too bulky for the hot weather, possible signals that they had put cardboard under their clothes to serve as body armor for non-body piercing bullets riot police use. At the same time, police in riot gear trained in parks in preparation for the protesters that have been a part of these meetings _ particularly after what happened in Seattle in 1999. By the time the summit was held on Georgia’s coast, there were thousands of police officers and National Guard troops patrolling roadways and bridges, or manning gunboats.

Gay said there were so many law enforcement officials involved, that what few protesters did show up were almost outnumbered by undercover officers. “When they did march, (police officers) were able to influence where they went.”

They also foiled the efforts of not-so-smart crooks who tried to commit crimes while the summit was being held. “We had some poor soul trying to commit a robbery one night and there must have been 12-15 police cars there,” he said chuckling.

Whether officers drill in Chicago remains to be seen, but the department has a head start when it comes to security, starting with a still growing camera surveillance system that former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has called the most extensive and integrated network of its kind in the nation. Further, events like election night in 2008 in Grant Park when thousands of people poured into Grant Park to see the newly-elected president and this year’s visit to the city by the president of China have become almost routine.

“These went off without a hitch,” said former Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

Baltimore “Unit One… Signal 13″

Baltimore Sun via YellowBrix

January 03, 2009

BALTIMORE, MD – Baltimore police dispatchers put out a call just after midnight yesterday that captured everyone’s attention: Unit One … Signal 13.

In other words, the police commissioner needs help – fast.

The city’s top cop, Frederick H. Bealefeld III, was alone in the basement of a Southwest Baltimore rowhouse holding a suspect at gunpoint.

A member of his executive protection unit, Peter Sullivan, was upstairs searching the house for a second man with a gun.

“I was worried about him,” Bealefeld said yesterday, referring to his fellow officer. “I’m sure he was worried about me.”

A hands-on leader, Bealefeld is known to ride around the city and has chased down the occasional suspect.

But ordinarily, at midnight on New Year’s Eve, Baltimore’s police commissioner is downtown overseeing officers assigned to the Inner Harbor during the annual fireworks display. The department bulks up its ranks, canceling all leaves so there are enough officers on hand to help with the crowds and an anticipated spike in crime because of the city’s tradition of celebratory gunfire.

With the fireworks postponed this year because of high winds, Bealefeld took advantage of the extra 1,100 officers on duty and sent them throughout the city. That meant 1,500 officers working the streets, up from about 400 on a typical night.

“You either send people home and tell people come back tomorrow, or you make use of those resources,” he said. “The overwhelming consensus was let’s make use of the resources we already had programmed and let’s put them in the neighborhoods.”

The result: In addition to the pair of guns Bealefeld seized, city officers took 46 other firearms between midnight and 3 a.m. They arrested 44 suspects on gun charges, police said. But even with the extra officers on the street, one city man was shot in East Baltimore about 1 a.m. yesterday and was on life support yesterday evening. This morning, police said the man has died.

Bealefeld participated in the patrols and initially drove with his two-member protection detail and his communications director around east-side neighborhoods.

Satisfied with coverage there, they headed to the Bridgeview-Greenlawn community on the west side, where a man had shot five people on Sunday.

“We figured that people would be on edge,” he said. “It is not rocket science. We do this every day.”

As midnight approached, Bealefeld heard gunfire.

The group drove toward it, heading to Catherine Street near Bon Secours Hospital.

Bealefeld and Sullivan jumped from the car. “We’re looking west up the alley,” Bealefeld said. “A guy walked out and started shooting. You could see the muzzle flash. You know it is a gun, a big gun.”

The men ducked into the basement of a rowhouse in the 2500 block of W. Fairmount Ave., with Bealefeld and Sullivan in pursuit.

Inside, Bealefeld and Sullivan encountered a roomful of people. The police commissioner spotted one of the suspects there and held him downstairs. Sullivan went upstairs to find the other.

“For a little minute, we were in there by ourselves,” Bealefeld said.

The second member of the commissioner’s protection unit, Annie Miller, had called for backup. She was outside and did not know which rowhouse the commissioner had entered.

Bealefeld got on the radio, too, and called in the address for the rowhouse. “I was on the radio saying Unit One,” he said.

He then added the code that set the whole force on edge: “Signal 13.”

So many cars responded to the distress call that Bealefeld worried about protection in other parts of the city, causing him to have mixed feelings about the incident.

“This is the professional dilemma of being the police commissioner and being out on the street. I was grateful for the backup. But we have other cops in the city. We have to be covering them too.”

In the end, police arrested Davon Rogers, 23, and Devin Rogers, 18. Each was charged with illegally firing a gun in the city, records show. And officers seized two sawed-off shotguns, a Remington and a Mossberg, police said.

Shortly afterward, Bealefeld fielded an angry phone call from his wife, who had become worried when he did not call her at midnight on New Year’s Eve as he normally does.

Her first question was whether he was wearing a bullet-resistant vest. He told her he was.

Last days for Marine were true Finest hours

By Denis Hamill, The New York Daily News, Tuesday, December 9th, 2008

Tuesday, December 9th 2008, 6:49 PM

Adams for News

NYPD officer Susan Porcello’s big heart gave elderly Marine Gaspar Musso friends and care in his final days.

Gaspar Musso in his World War II days.

Musso more recently.

Sometimes when old Marines die they do fade away into unmarked graves in Potter’s Field.

Such might have been the case for Gaspar Musso, USMC 925050, who fought in the Battle of Tinian in the Marianas Islands in 1944 and who died Nov. 15 at age 84 in a Brooklyn nursing home.

Enter Police Officer Susan Porcello, a PBA delegate at the 68th Precinct in Bay Ridge and one of those big-hearted New Yorkers who still make this the best city on Earth.

“No way was I going to let this brave old Marine who fought for his country in WWII get buried in Potter’s Field,” she says.

Porcello first met Musso back in July when she responded to a 911 ambulance call to the retired insurance broker’s one-bedroom apartment on, appropriately, Marine Ave.

“When my partner, Eddie Ennis, and I arrived at his apartment Gaspar seemed a little bit down about himself,” Porcello says. “He said he felt alone in the world. We talked to him a bit and as I looked around his tidy apartment I noticed that he had served in the military – the Marines to be exact.”

Porcello asked him about family and friends. “Look around you, what do you see?” Musso said. “I have no family or friends.”

To which Porcello said, “Well, I’m your friend.”

Right there, with those four beautiful words, Gaspar Musso was destined to die with the dignity he’d earned with a rifle in his hands, fighting in a USMC uniform, in a war that saved civilization.

If she didn’t already wear a badge, you’d want to pin a star on Susan Porcello.

Musso, a diabetic with a host of other age-related maladies, had accidentally overdosed on his prescription medications. Porcello accompanied him to Lutheran Medical Center.

“I told him I’d be back to visit him and take him to a senior center where he could make some friends,” said Porcello, who comes from a big Italian family with a mom, dad, three sisters and a brother.

“I told him I was making him my ‘Grandpa,’ and if he liked, he could spend Thanksgiving with my family. Eddie and I discussed alternating holidays with Gaspar so he wouldn’t be alone for any of them.”

Two days later Musso was placed in critical care. Porcello asked hospital staff where he’d be buried if he didn’t make it. “Potter’s Field,” said one administrator.

“This infuriated me,” said Porcello. “There was no way I was going to let a man who fought for our country be buried in Potter’s Field. Not on my watch!”

Porcello told the hospital to keep her apprised of Musso’s condition. She had a local priest visit him. Porcello even asked NYPD‘s Missing Person’s Squad to search for next of kin.

No luck.

Musso had been an only child to Anthony and Marie Musso, both deceased. He had no other relatives. Musso’s only friend, an upstairs neighbor, had died the year before.

After his health improved, Musso asked Porcello to become his official health proxy.

She transferred him to Caton Park Nursing Home, where he was treated extremely well. She visited him often, learning that Musso was born May 7, 1924, joined the USMC in December 1943, finished training at Camp Lejune in March 1944 and was fighting with the 2nd Marines on Tinian Island by July 1944.

“I visited Gaspar on Nov. 13, bringing him rosary beads, a Bible, and his reading glasses,” she said.

“The next day, Nov. 14, I returned and found Gaspar sitting up in a chair, dressed in his own clothes. Looking great.”

Porcello washed his hands and face, trimmed his nails and eyebrows and asked if he was coming to her house for Thanksgiving. “I’m trying!” he said. He also asked Porcello to bring him a Christmas wreath for his room.

The next morning Porcello received a phone call saying that Gaspar Musso had died peacefully in his sleep.

No way was she going to let her good friend be toe-tagged and buried in Potter’s Field.

Porcello paid out of her own pocket for a wake at McLaughlin’s on Third Ave. and a mass at St. Patrick’s Church in Bay Ridge, where a crowd of good-hearted cops from the 68th Precinct filled the pews, six serving as pallbearers. Sgt. Angel Rosa of the 68th, also a Marine, arranged for a USMC honor guard at Musso’s funeral.

Then taps blew over Gaspar Musso, United States Marine, as he was buried next to his mother at Resurrection Cemetery in Staten Island.

With the dignity he deserved.

Semper Fi.