Metro Transit Police partner with Departments of Homeland Security and Energy to receive additional radiological detection equipment

The U.S. Departments of Energy and Homeland Security's Office of Domestic Preparedness presented Metro Transit Police with several sets of radiological detection equipment today.

The equipment, valued at about $7,000, will be used by the Metro Transit Police Department should they have reason to believe that a suspicious package may pose a radiological threat.

"We are very happy to have this equipment to supplement the radiological pagers that we currently use in the Metrorail system," said Police Chief Polly Hanson, who put in a request to the federal agencies for the new equipment earlier this month. The response from our federal partners has been magnificent."

The radiological pagers are carried by transit officers while they are on routine patrol. The new equipment will be used by police officers and supervisors who are trained specifically to deal with situations where radiation is detected.

"The equipment basically can determine the level of radioactivity of a package," Chief Hanson explained. "We would use the equipment before our officers would touch, remove, disarm, or disrupt a device to determine if it was radiological in nature."

"Our request for this equipment does not indicate any specific, impending danger or threat to our system," Chief Hanson said. "Having it serves as a precautionary measure that adds another level of security prevention to our arsenal," she said.

The Department of Energy has a "reuse" program that takes surplus equipment and allows it to be reused by others. In the case of the radiological detection equipment, it is being redistributed to first responder agencies such as Metro Transit Police.

Richard Mehan of the Department of Energy in Oak Ridges, TN, and Kerry Thomas, Branch Manager of the Office of Domestic Preparedness for the Department of Homeland Security presented the equipment to the Metro Transit Police.