The Port of Baltimore is a tough beat to police. The challenge
of such a dynamic environment—a shipping nexus, tourist attraction,
venue for special events and a thoroughfare for cruise ships—has
prompted Maryland’s transportation authority to create a marine
unit to enhance security.
The move is emblematic of a nationwide trend to place more law enforcement
into boats. Coordination among U.S. Coast Guard personnel, state
police, first responders and local cops is essential to enhancing
security on the nation’s waterways, officials told National
Defense.
In 2004, the Maryland’s Transportation Authority Police established
their first marine unit to impose a presence on the water around
Baltimore. A little more than a year later, the unit has three boats,
and can stay on the water for 24 hour, seven-day stretches. Maryland’s
transportation police share responsibility with the city police
fleet, state environmental police, city fire department, several
county sheriff departments and the Coast Guard.
“Law enforcement before 9/11 was territorial, except for
some task forces,” said Maryland Transportation Authority
police captain Gary McLhinney. “Now the Coast Guard offers
joint training for people not too familiar with the harbor side.”
With port protection high on the list of Coast Guard duties, its
area of responsibility has been brought even closer to the shoreline.
At the same time, state and local cops are taking to the water for
added security. The result either could be an increase in chaos
or capability, depending on the way it’s coordinated.
The Coast Guard recently has been hammering out more memorandums
of agreement with local and state law enforcement, bridging land
and sea operations between federal and local players. The agreements
are the service’s preferred tools of coordination with state
and local enforcement.
Coast Guard policy offers great latitude when it comes to forming
these pacts. Each operational commander is allowed to write the
agreement in a way that makes the most sense for the environment.
In Maine, details covering the Bush family residence and escorting
Navy ships have been put into agreements. In New Jersey, state police
are incorporated into plans to protect high-value waterfront targets.
“It’s really being left to individual Coast Guard units,”
said Chief Petty Officer Paul Rhynard, spokesman for legal affairs
at Coast Guard headquarters. “It’s important to be flexible.
No two ports are alike, and no two places have to same security
needs.”
Common focuses for these agreements include specialized training,
equipment sharing, detention of suspects and responsibility for
criminal prosecution. Whether merging assets under a unified command
during special security events or deciding who will process charges
against drunken boaters, memorandums of agreement are the preferred
tools for Coast Guard, state and local cooperation. “We’re
a force multiplier for each other,” Rhynard said.
In Baltimore, a memorandum of agreement paved the way for the state’s
marine police unit to receive training from the Coast Guard, which
instructed members on boat-to-boat prisoner transfers, survival
and rescue skills and other law enforcement sea craft. Future training
will encompass shooting firearms from vessels, boarding procedures
and other tactical matters that may prove necessary while on patrol,
transportation police officials said.
To keep an eye on the exposed coastlines, the Coast Guard has been
relying on volunteers from its auxiliary to be proactive in policing
local waters and recruiting help from the public. Shortly after
the terrorist attacks of September 2001, Coast Guard units around
the country developed local waterway watch programs to encourage
reporting of suspicious activity.
The program went national this March. The Coast Guard is providing
materials and guidelines to encourage the development of comparable
surveillance programs at other locations.
“This is a program similar to neighborhood watch, in which
law enforcement organizations coordinate crime prevention with local
citizens,” said Adm. Thomas Collins, Coast Guard commandant.
“We’re asking the public to be aware of and report suspicious
activity, particularly near bridges, tunnels, fuel docks, industrial
facilities and other sensitive locations.”
However, there is no replacement for trained law enforcement personnel
when it comes to providing persistent protection on the water, especially
when it comes to securing ports. Success there has benefits that
go beyond the war on terrorism, an official noted.
Ports are economic drivers, and the state governments are eager
to demonstrate advantages to lure business. The Port of Baltimore,
for example, serves as a major trans-shipment point for imported
automobiles. With added policing of the port, vehicle thefts at
the point of arrival decrease—there were zero reports of stolen
cars in 2004, for example—and car companies, consequently,
are more inclined to enter into shipment contracts. Mercedes Benz
recently signed a $20 million contract with the Port of Baltimore.
The deal is a tribute to Baltimore’s prime location as much
as its anti-theft policies. But ports are competitive, and security
can add value for customers.
Transportation police are also on the lookout for oil spills and
illegal dumping, as well as suspicious or unauthorized behavior.
Environmental crimes and boater safety receive additional boosts
when more law enforcement takes to the water.
The lead agency for any incident is the one that first responds,
according to Maryland Transportation Authority Police Sgt. Ronald
McElwee, the marine unit’s commander. As the situation evolves,
more assets can be called; fire department vessels, dive or helicopter
teams from the city or boats from state environmental police, he
said.
This flexible structure is not dependent on boat-to-boat communication,
but on the quick interchange of dispatchers and exchanged cell phone
numbers between crews, he explained. The network of law enforcement
extends up the channels and into the Chesapeake Bay, where a growing
number of sheriff’s departments are establishing a presence
in the waters of their jurisdictions.
McElwee’s fleet includes two boats that were built by SeArk
Marine Inc., a 36-foot vessel that was purchased and a 25-foot boat
that is leased. An 18-foot Boston Whaler motorboat rounds out the
small police flotilla, none of which have yet been given names.
McElwee said he would like to augment the three boats with some
small craft, whose shallow drafts provide access to inlets and piers
that mark the shoreline.
So far, Maryland has paid for its police boats with transportation
department funds, not grant money. McElwee hopes that federal grant
money can be used to buy more boats and upgrade communications equipment.
State and local municipalities are lining up to buy small craft
as they try to fulfill their new security mandates, said Ken McFalls,
SeArk’s vice president of sales.
“As homeland security funds become available, we’ve
seen a domino effect,” he said. “One department sees
someone else has one, and they want one. It’s been very good
for us.”
There is more at work than ‘I-want-a-pony’ syndrome,
however. Securing the waterways at the local level is more a matter
of organization in the face of new operational requirements. “They’re
trying to gain this capability because they’ve all been tasked
with this responsibility,” McFalls said. “They’re
figuring out who is responsible for what.”
SeArk Marine’s customers come in many shapes and sizes, from
large cities to small agencies, from a police unit buying a small
fleet to a group of cash-strapped counties pooling their resources
to put a jointly staffed boat on a shared patch of water. He estimates
that in the last two years, domestic sales have risen 50 percent,
fueled by state and local police purchases.
The addition of state-owned marine units, theoretically, provides
eyes and ears to the entire homeland security and defense communities,
which clearly are concerned with closing gaps in littoral security.
The Maritime Transportation Security Act, signed by President George
W. Bush in November 2002, standardizes the measures of the domestic
port security team of federal, state, local and private authorities
and requires the establishment of maritime security committees and
plans for facilities and vessels that may be involved in a transportation
incident.
After 9/11, a slate of local and federal agencies and associations
joined an existing partnership between the Coast Guard and the city
of Baltimore. This group, now dubbed the Maryland Maritime Security
Group, involves nearly 20 agencies, including the state department
of transportation and its trio of boats.
The agencies that share responsibility for the harbor also collaborate
on terrorism exercises, simulating attacks on cruise ships and weapons
strikes in containers. The lessons of these tabletop simulations
are meant to closely bond the many, and growing, players involved
in a response.
This emerging waterway security effort ideally has links within
the hierarchy at the state and federal levels. Maryland, like many
states, has an anti-terrorism advisory council. Their council established
a Maryland coordination and analysis center that is commanded by
a local police captain and resourced with federal, state and local
law enforcement personnel. It is also a main point of contact for
the area’s joint terrorism task force that is led by the FBI.
Since half the port facilities belong to the private sector, law
enforcement constantly needs to provide outreach to the industry
players, said Mike Collins of the Maryland secretary of transportation’s
office. Various committees and subcommittees established by the
council and Port of Baltimore exist to bring in these players, he
noted.
Baltimore is an inland port, so much of its international cargo
is prescreened at other locations—Philadelphia and Hampton
Roads, primarily. The Customs Department, however, is installing
radiation detectors and vehicle and cargo inspection system gamma-ray
machines to screen trucks and containers, Collins said. These sensors
will be in place by the end of the year, he added.