NYPD to the rescue

Before 9/11, the N.Y.P.D. had fewer than two dozen officers working the terrorism beat full time. Today, there are about a thousand. Crime-fighting is still the N.Y.P.D.’s primary mission, but counterterrorism has really expanded the operational and conceptual boundaries of traditional police work. There are N.Y.P.D. detectives permanently stationed overseas, for instance, in half a dozen different countries. Ray Kelly, the Commissioner, has gone way outside of the traditional police-recruitment channels, looking for people with military, intelligence, and diplomatic backgrounds, people with deep knowledge of international terrorist organizations. What’s more, he has comprehensively persuaded the entire department to think of counterterrorism as a fundamental part of what cops call the Job.

In the July 25, 2005 issue of The New Yorker, William Finnegan wrote a breath-catching report called "The Terrorism Beat," describing how the NYPD has stepped into the huge gap in Homeland Security as applied to New York City -- to the benefit of all of us.

The excerpt above is from an interview with Finnegan about the piece; the interview is still available online and touches on many of the important points. But you've got to read the original article, about 20 pages.

Let me know if you can't find it . . .