How police locate suspects using technology

But right now, we want to continue our coverage of this incident that happened at the George Washington Bridge, which for many years, especially since 9-11, has been on the top target list of terrorists. And we're going to speak right now with John Ryan. He's a retired chief of the Port Authority Police Department and also a former commander of the Joint Terrorism Task Force. John, thank you so much for being with us. We appreciate it. You're welcome. Good to be here. Thank you. And, John, when something like what happened Tuesday night where this retired NYPD detective opens fire on this Con Ed worker on the entrance ramps going on to the George Washington Bridge headed towards New Jersey, what kind of systems are in place at the bridge right now? I mean, to find out who's responsible, to even notice that something besides just the usual heavy traffic is going on. Well, you know, since 9-11, there's been many layers of protection that have been put in place there between CCTV camera coverage, their seamless CCTV camera coverage of all the critical infrastructures, not only in New York, but nationwide and around the world. And also, you know, other techniques, technology there, EasyPass, you know, cell phone data, All these layers of protection there that are used to reduce the response time to a potential terrorist event. So when the shooting occurred, you know, we didn't know all of the factors that were going to lead up to the apprehension of the person involved. You know, so there's an assumption there that, you know, this could be a terrorist event. So all of those layers of protection are reviewed and assessed and analyzed to try to identify the people involved. So what had to what was the first alert? What would have been the first alert that this, you know, I'm sure the man that the man that was the victim, his car swerving, there's this kind of erratic driving activity. What's the first alert that Port Authority police would get? Because we see them on the New York side. We see them on the New Jersey side. But in terms of the visual, are there cameras throughout the bridge? Are they monitoring what's going on? Is there one? Take us through those steps of what happens. So a lot of camera systems, not only on the bridge, but throughout New York and throughout the country. And, you know, have built in, you know, artificial intelligence there that is programmed to assess the volumes of information that is flowing through those systems there. that basically have tripwires that identify certain types of activity there that may be an event there that would require a police response. It's very similar to what you have like throughout New York City there with the shot spotter technology there so that it records and it hears and it analyzes sound there that indicates to them that there's been a shot fired. So that would then trigger a police response there to determine whether or not there was an actual incident, whether there were victims, whether there is evidence that needs to be collected. Again, these are all layers of technology that have been enhanced and utilized since 9-11. And then so so there would who would have gotten the signal? Would it have been like the duty captain or duty sergeant who would have gotten the signal that there was something happening on the bridge that definitely needed police investigation, Port Authority police investigation? So all the critical infrastructure today there have security control centers there that all of this information is fed to. And then they also have redundancy. They have off-site locations there that the information goes to as well. So that, you know, there's human interaction at that point. There are person, you know, reviews and assesses that there. And, you know, then, you know, if it was a ShotSpotter technology, then they would have gone to the CCTV camera footage there to see if there was an incident. And then ultimately, you know, it leads to a reduction in the response time of uniformed police officers to be on scene. So all of those critical layers there are what leads to the response and ultimately the reduction in time that helps in identifying and apprehending the people involved. So are there radio channels like between the PAPD and like the NYPD and then New Jersey State Police or whatever the local Jersey authority is on the other side of the bridge where like basically a 911 call goes out to alert them that something has happened that they need to respond to? Yeah, so post 9-11, you know, the technology and the communications between the different departments has vastly improved. But like on the Jersey side, they have the ROC, the Joint Regional Operations Center. So all of that information is gathered initially by the first responders, the people that are the boots on the ground. But it's all fed back to the centralized intelligence centers for distribution to see if it's related to any other incidents that are occurring. You know, and then most importantly, the sharing of the information and the communication is so like, you know, in this event, you know, you had a response not only by PAPD, whose primary jurisdiction in George Washington Bridge is there, but you also had a response by NYPD. You know, today, everybody has a cell phone there. And when they see something, they say something. So, you know, I'm sure, you know, that there are a lot of people that were, you know, driving there that may have observed this erratic driving or road rage situation there, which, you know, unfortunately, a lot of us encounter, you know, on a regular basis, you know, if you're driving on the roads and they report it. They call it into 9-1-1 or they call it into 3-1-1, you know, in an effort to identify it there, but also to communicate it to the police so that they they can have a response. And then from what you know, and this wasn't your investigation, this wasn't your operation because you retired from the Port Authority Police Department. We thank you for your service with that and especially your work, the work that you've done very extensively since 9-11 to make our region safe. But if they have all of this technology, they see the car, they see this happening, how does that retired NYPD detective, how does he get across the bridge, which at that time of night, you know, at that time of night, there's significant traffic. It's moving, but it's very, very heavy. Get across to the Jersey side of the bridge and then either get home to Haverstraw or get wherever he spent the night and evade police if they're able to read his license plate. Because they have license plate readers, right, on the bridge like they do in the city? They do. They also have Easy Pass. But again, you know, just having that that historical information, somebody still has to review it, you know, identify the person or identify the suspect vehicle, you know, and then, you know, use that information there to try to identify the person. You know, it's not like you just, you know, snap your fingers and it appears. Right. So there is a gathering of information. you know what the technology allows you though is that that time from the actual incident to the time of apprehension is significantly reduced just think about if we didn't have this video or we didn't have the other technology that was in place you'd be trying to recreate this crime scene and try and identify a vehicle traveling across the George Washington Bridge you know and you know trying to find witnesses there uh you know putting posting you know if anybody was in the area of the bridge or an incident can you please you know contact us and provide us with the information so what this does there this basically makes everybody you know a driver with a cell phone uh a an extension of those layers of protection there because it significantly reduces the amount of time uh for that initial investigation and then do you think that I don't know if there was if there was drone technology that was used. NYPD, we've seen them make arrests like shortly after there was a very famous case last year with it, with a car, with a car thief, a suspected car thief. They use the drone and, you know, to aid in a pursuit of a particular suspect. Does the Port Authority have any type of drone technology that you know of that for especially for the bridges? So again, the drone technology is good, and it's basically incident-driven, so you still would have to have a response. It's not like you have drones in the air 24-7. There's a response time, there's an assessment, the people have to be deployed, the trained people have to be deployed with the technology. Right. You know, a lot of times those situations that the drone is is beneficial is where, you know, there's a person on foot as opposed to a vehicle. Yeah. In incidents that where a vehicle is involved there, you know, unless it's on a, you know, an isolated roadway there where, you know, you know, and the other side of it is we've all become, you know, accustomed to drone technology there. you know prior to drones you know they would have you know utilized aviation there the helicopters there whether it be the New Jersey State Police the New York City Police Department so drones is just a another layer of that protection there and if it's beneficial you know i'm sure the commanders on the scene will uh you know um request that it be provided and is this incident and just the way that it unfolded and you know what you talk about the the timeline of it is this raising any new concerns in your mind about potential terror threats or vulnerabilities uh in the future especially in this time of war that we're in so the the threats and the vulnerability is always out there you know just like we are utilizing new technology uh to capture and address any potential threat you know the bad guys are out there trying to figure out ways to compromise those systems so you know um as you saw i mean you know uh you know as much as people are questioning the amount of time between the incident and the time of apprehension there uh you know that's that's a pretty quick you know resolution to this case there if you look at other cases there you know as like you mentioned earlier and you're reporting there uh in regards to the uh the 17 year old in the subway incident there you know so from the time that that incident occurred to the time that the person was arrested you know through support of cctv cameras capturing the image you still have to locate the person you know um you have to identify them first and then locate them there so the technology is is a really good tool and and you know as the technology improves you'll see that reduction in the the time from an incident to the time of apprehension. The one critical thing there, though, is that if you were to look at this there, from the time of the initial reporting of the potential shooting on the bridge, the response by the Port Authority Police Department was within minutes. So again, all of the technology is great, but it still requires a significant presence of boots on the ground, and that's your first layer of protection there. So when an incident occurs, you know they have to be on the scene and then it gets spilled out from there no exactly and anything else john before we let you go anything else we should be keeping our eye on about this case or questions that you have about it you know again uh you know like i mentioned there i'm sure there was a lot of people you know that that were traveling across the bridge there you know if they you know by some chance you'll have to happen to capture something on a cell phone video or an in car video you know again you know it could be an important piece that again just further explains you know the basis of the incident and what occurred so if that technology if that information is out there you know it would be beneficial if the people you know provided that and reported it in to their local police all right great thank you so much for being with us uh john ryan retired chief of the Port Authority Police Department former commander of the Joint Terrorism Task for us. Thank you so much for being with us for this edition of Newsroom Live. We appreciate it. You're welcome, Lisa.