Walk through Times Square today, and you'll see heavy steel bollards, concrete barriers, and strategically placed planters. They're not there for decoration. Since 2010, both Al Qaeda and ISIS have repeatedly urged their supporters to use vehicles as weapons. The results? Nice. Stockholm. Berlin. London. Barcelona. Each attack proved how devastating this simple tactic can be.
But head to a small-town festival or parade, and what do you see? Maybe there are a few plastic barriers. Perhaps some parked police cars. It's a stark difference that keeps law enforcement up at night.
While DHS pours billions into protecting major cities, thousands of smaller communities across America remain vulnerable. New York gets cutting-edge security equipment and training. Meanwhile, small-town police departments often lack basic knowledge in stopping a vehicle-turned-weapon. The physics are brutal – a heavy vehicle moving at speed can cause catastrophic casualties before anyone can respond. Yet many local law enforcement agencies simply don't have the tools or training to prevent such an attack.
Our wide-open southern border makes this threat even more serious. With record numbers crossing illegally each day, our border patrol agents are overwhelmed. They can't effectively screen everyone. Bad actors from anywhere worldwide – including those tied to groups that have called for vehicle attacks – could slip through undetected.
Local law enforcement and citizens need to know what to watch for. Suspicious rental patterns. Unusual surveillance of public gathering spaces. Vehicles modified in strange ways. These are the subtle signs that could prevent an attack. Every police department should have a clear protocol for receiving and investigating these reports. Every dispatcher should know exactly who to contact when suspicious activity comes in. Unfortunately, there may not be signs at the local level.
But here's where our security system critically fails: information sharing. The federal intelligence community has built walls so high that crucial threat information often never reaches the local officers who need it most. Federal agencies routinely over-classify intelligence about threats, likely even vehicle-based threats, rendering it useless to the small-town police chief planning security for next month's harvest festival.
This isn't just bureaucratic inefficiency – it's dangerous. When the FBI or DHS picks up credible intelligence about attack methods or threats, that information must reach local law enforcement quickly and in a usable format. A sheriff's deputy doesn't need to know the classified sources or sophisticated collection methods – they need clear, actionable information about potential threats to their community.
The old "need to know" mentality that dominates federal agencies must transform into a "need to share" culture, especially with local law enforcement on the front lines. Intelligence fusion centers exist in every state, but they're hamstrung by federal agencies playing classification games. Critical threat information gets buried under redundant security markings, trapped in classified systems that local police can't access, or watered down to the point of uselessness.
When President Trump's picks take over these federal agencies, they must tear down these artificial intelligence barriers. A small-town police department planning security for a major community event should have the same threat awareness as their big-city counterparts. Lives literally depend on it.
The solutions aren't complicated, but they require funding and training. Local police departments need access to proper barriers and vehicle interdiction tactics. They need help understanding how to create effective vehicle exclusion zones and implement crowd protection measures that don't turn every county fair into a fortress.
Simple changes can make a big difference – strategic placement of heavy planters, thoughtful positioning of service vehicles, smart crowd flow design. But small departments need training to understand these techniques. They need resources to implement them. Most importantly, they need federal agencies to stop treating them like an afterthought in America's security planning.
The threat is real, but it's manageable if we prepare. Every police department, not just big-city counterterror units, needs access to basic training and resources for prevention. The investment might seem expensive, but it's nothing compared to the cost of a successful attack.
The warning signs have been flashing for over a decade. The targets exist in every community across America. The question is simple: will President Trump's new team ensure that all of America, not just our biggest cities, has the resources needed to protect its citizens?
Right now, while Times Square sits behind layers of sophisticated protection, thousands of small-town gatherings remain vulnerable to one of terrorism's simplest tactics. That's a gap we can't afford to ignore any longer.