[Scan-DC] News Article...

[Dorset, Thomas]

I know my Verizon cell phone works in the Metro and I can hear Metro =
operations
on two VHF freqs with my Kenwood HT but I wonder if the MPD's radios =
work there?

5/04/04 - London news section

Police lose bombing suspect in Tube chase
By Sabi Phagura, Evening Standard

A suspected suicide bomber escaped on the Tube because pursuing
officers lost radio contact underground, it has emerged.

Scotland Yard officers privately fear they cannot properly protect
civilians because police radios do not work on the network.

The man was followed after a tip-off that he was going to blow
himself up at a Burger King in Leicester Square.

Police managed to track him down as he entered a Tube station.

But they lost track of him and were unable to radio colleagues to
guard the exits at other stations.

The suspect, an Asian man, was eventually caught and turned out
not to be a suicide bomber.

But officers said that if the incident, last October, had been genuine
the consequences would have been catastrophic.

The radio problem was identified three years ago.

Police are told to wait for London Underground staff, who are
equipped with working handsets.

Richard Barnes, of the Metropolitan Police Authority, said: 'I've been
trying to get something done about this for years.

'I find the situation incredibly worrying.

'To have police officers deep underground where they cannot even
talk to each other at either end of the station is a major issue.

'This is part of the preparedness of London for a terrorist incident.

'The one thing you have got to have as a front-line rescue service is
a communication system that works.

'You have to be able to talk to each other, or you could be directing
more people into danger.'

Sir Ian Blair, the Met's Deputy Commissioner, has raised the issue with
David Blunkett but the Home Office argues that London Underground
should pay for the equipment. Tube bosses disagree.

Meanwhile, police have been given until tomorrow to question eight
men arrested in Britain over a suspected Al-Qaeda bomb plot.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/londonnews/articles/10090976?source=3D=
Evening%20Standard



Thomas H. Dorset
Senior Program Officer
Office of Railroad Development, RDV-11
Federal Railroad Administration
1120 Vermont Avenue, N.W., Seventh Floor
Washington, DC 20590
Phone 202 493 6362   Fax 202 493 6333