The Business of Safety
When I went into my local subway station the other day and found two police officers standing just inside the turnstiles, I immediately froze. Of course, I knew I hadn't done anything wrong and had nothing to hide. I wasn't smuggling any drugs, I don't own any weapons, concealed or otherwise, and I'd long since washed off that hooker's DNA. But any time I'm confronted with law-enforcement officers, I get this paranoid voice in the back of my head saying, "I hope they don't stop me, maybe I am drug mule and it just slipped my mind." But as usual, I gave that possibility a moment of careful consideration, and decided that it wasn't an especially likely scenario. With that settled, I headed fearlessly into the suwbay.
But it turned out that my paranoia was even more misplaced than usual, as the officers weren't even searching bags or anything. Instead, they were simply handing out cards. I took one out of curiosity, and found that it was a business card for the NYPD's counter-terrorism unit. It didn't say much more than "If You See Something, Say Something" and a phone number. At first I was puzzled, then a bit disconcerted by the realization that the people who are responsible for my safety are stooping to this level. After all, they've got to be scraping the bottom of the idea barrel if they're resorting to the same investigative tactics as the unlicensed dentist. But even the dentist isn't wasting the time of uniformed police officers. At least he has the business sense to employ freshly arrived immigrants in smocks with cartoon teeth on them to stand by the exits jamming flyers into the hands of anyone distracted enough to take them. And if the cops wanted to gauge the efficacy of this plan, they need look no further than the nearest garbage can, which is usually overflowing with discarded offers for free whitening. (As a side note, I once went to that dentist, and I hope the police are at least as well-versed in torture methods should anyone actually call them.)
I couldn't help but wonder, do the police really think that what's been stopping everyone from reporting subway terrorists is that people don't know the phone number? In this age where iPhones are easier to come by than phone books, do they really think the average person is so lazy as to think, "Well, my neighborhood may be moments away from being consumed in a massive ball of fire, but Siri can't recognize the word 'thermonuclear,' and fuck if I'm going to type that in.
Or maybe they're hiding the fact that the counter-terrorism unit had it's funding cut, and an order from Vista Print was all they had left in the budget. Like how private investigators can weasel a candid interview out of just about anyone by handing them a thirty-cent business card with a fake name and credentials no one will ever bother to check. Maybe the police are hoping that no one will call, but we'll all think, "they wouldn't have a phone number if someone wasn't on the other end of the line, so I can rest easy knowing that someone is working tirelessly around the clock to keep this subway free from anything more dangerous than a hobo's urine." Maybe if the MTA started handing out contact info for the Hobo Urine Sanitation Division, we'd stop noticing that as well.
Whatever their thinking is, I hope they don't continue further down this road. The day I see a cop standing outside the subway jiggling a coffee cup and holding a sign that reads, "Bombs Please, God Bless" is the day I'm moving to a safer city. Or at least a city where they can afford double-sided business cards. There's comfort in production value.
-TC