NYPD Reloads After Mumbai With Training Program

The team of New York City Police officers had received a chilling report: Heavily armed suspects had stormed a building and taken hostages.

The officers, each armed with an assault rifle and mindful of the terror attacks last year in Mumbai, crisscross down the block, bracing for a potential firefight.

“We know there are hostages in there,'' Lt. Kenneth Beatty warns while supervising the operation. “The number's unknown.''

Unlike Mumbai, no one can get seriously hurt: The street is part of the NYPD's version of a movie studio's back lot, with mock street signs, phony buildings and storefronts made of cinderblock -- even a yellow cab and city bus. The guns can't fire. The hostages are played by other officers.

NYPD officials say the mission at their firearms training facility reflects their belief that the city is vulnerable to a New York sequel to the Indian siege, and their determination not to be outgunned.

“Terrorists are thinking creatively about new tactics,'' Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said last week at a City Council public safety hearing. “So must we.''

The nation's largest police department launched a counterterrorism initiative this month to train a new team of officers with semiautomatic rifles loaded with armor-piercing bullets. The officers also are being trained in tactics for close quarters combat and rescuing hostages in hotels and other high-rise buildings.

After the three-day assault in Mumbai on luxury hotels, a Jewish center and other sites in November left 164 people dead, the NYPD dispatched investigators to India to see if there were any security lessons for New York. They were struck how the 10 shooters calmly caused so much mayhem by relying on cell-phone communication and Chinese knockoff AK-47s. The local police and security officers, they said, were clearly overwhelmed.

“Their weapons were not sufficiently powerful and they were not trained for that type of conflict,'' Kelly said. “It took more than 12 hours for properly armed Indian commandos to arrive.''

The NYPD's 400 Emergency Service Unit officers already can carry fully automatic Colt M4 rifles -- what the manufacturer bills as “the weapon of the 21st century soldier.''

But post-Mumbai, the department decided it needed to train about 130 reinforcements from its Organized Crime Control Bureau with Ruger Mini-14s in case a militant force even larger than the one that struck India's financial capital invaded here. Police academy recruits will get a tutorial on how to secure assault weapons recovered in combat situations or, in a pinch, how to shoot them.

The NYPD also has begun videotaping the interiors of large hotels so emergency service officers can learn their layouts and match wits with terrorists who, as in Mumbai, may have done surveillance. In addition, Kelly told the council that police want to explore ways to disrupt cell phone service “in a pinpointed way against terrorists who are using them.''

Last week at the firing range -- located on a desolate, wind-swept peninsula in the Bronx -- instructors drilled officers on how to rescue hostages while giving each other cover. They warned that terrorists could try to blend in with victims. Any lapse in concentration could prove deadly.

“You guys have to communicate!'' one instructor yelled as the officers secured a darkened stairwell as an escape route.

At a nearby firing range, another set of officers used their assault weapons to blast away at targets. They would shoot 600 rounds over two days to complete the training.

Some of the guns were purposely rigged to suddenly fire blanks -- a signal to the officers to practice dropping a jammed weapon and immediately draw their semiautomatic pistols and keep shooting. When the shooting stopped, the range was littered with shell casings and empty magazines.

The exercise was another sign of a new era in policing, said Assistant Chief George Anderson, commanding officer of the police academy.

“We've always been prepared to deal with criminals, not terrorists,'' Anderson said. “Now we have to go to the next level.''