Officials ponder school bus terror attacks
Homeland Security report: officials ponder school bus terror attacks, risk assessment lessened since September
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed to PRB News they are revisiting the school bus terror attack scenario again after a previous report in September 2007.
Separate, independent, reports indicated growing concern over the lack of funds for school bus safety studies and strategy development six months after a special appropriation approved by congress last August.
In a report released to PRB and the Christian Action Network, Homeland Security said there have been some encouraging developments since September when officials were looking into the disappearance of several busses in the Houston, Texas area.
“There was concern that they could be used in some type of attack,” the report stated.
Since that time, four men were arrested in connection with the bus thefts. “It turns out they were scrapping and selling the buses for profit,” the report stated.
A man in charge of North Carolina school bus safety is focused on a nightmare terrorism scenario: simultaneous bomb blasts on busses in several cities across the country.
“Imagine what that would do,” said Derek Graham, transportation chief with the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, president of a national school transportation group.
“Imagine the economic impact if parents weren’t confident their children would be secure when they take the bus to school,” he added. “The nation’s school bus system is the largest system of public transportation” - in America - and, “It is just very vulnerable.”
In response to this threat, more local school bus drivers are training in counter-terror activity – including a morning check under buses every day to spot anything odd or out of place.
Graham and other school transportation leaders fear the federal government isn’t taking their concerns seriously.
The federal Transportation Security Administration has yet to begin a safety assessment ordered by Congress in August.
Homeland Security acknowledges the continuing possibility of attack.
“Is there a threat? Yes,” the department report stated. “There is also the threat of someone shooting up a mall, tampering with food, detonating a bomb in a public building and thousands of other scenarios.”
What they meant by that dire list of possibilities is that the bus attack scenario is no longer noted as a special-case threat.
Homeland Security leaders said they advised the public not to panic over a certain scenario, or be specifically concerned at this time.
“You can’t live your life in fear of all of the possibilities,” the report stated. “The fact remains that the odds of you ever actually being the victim of a terror attack are incredibly small.
“The point we want to make is this,” the report added. “Be aware of your surroundings. If you see something unusual, report it. Take necessary precautions but don’t let those precautions dictate how you live your life.”
The school transportation leaders were none-the-less concerned. They pointed out that although the agency has poured billions of dollars into security for ports, railways, motor coaches and the air industry over six years, it has done little for the millions of children who ride buses.
Last August, legislation signed by U.S. President George Bush gave the Transportation Security Administration, part of the Department of Homeland Security, a year to develop an assessment of school bus security.
“Five months later, though, little has been done,” Graham said.
The Homeland Security report noted concerns expressed by school transportation leaders, and while not dismissive of the concerns, indicated they should be kept in context of the overall risk.
“Stories like this should not be used to cause fear and panic,” the report stated. “They should be used to examine and re-evaluate risk.
“Once the risk is properly evaluated, reasonable – reasonable - security precautions can be put in place,” the report concluded.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge, House Homeland Security Committee member, and Democratic U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, committee chairman, learned the TSA has yet to develop a plan for how to go about the assessment.
“School buses have always been soft targets,” said Etheridge. “I’m kind of disappointed. In just a few months we expect this report, and I don’t see the urgency.”
Regarding the bus thefts, Houston police said the area was hit by a band of thieves that specialized in stealing school buses and selling them for scrap.
Detectives said the group has been linked to at least eight bus thefts. An anonymous tip led detectives to two members of the alleged group: suspected ringleader Mauro Yanez, 36, and Bernabe Moreno, 40.
By the end of December, a third suspect, Samuel Morales, 20, was also under arrest, and a fourth man, James Leon Jackson, 23, remained at large, police said.
Jackson has since been apprehended, authorities said. Yanez, Moreno and Jackson stand charged with organized criminal activity, and Morales is accused of auto theft, police said.
Police said thieves took the buses from churches and private schools and delivered them to a northeast Houston scrap metal dealer to get about $1,000 to $1,200 per bus, police said.
“They get paid by the weight of the vehicle. So the bigger, the better,” HPD Capt. Don McKinney said. “Buses were obviously substantially larger than any other vehicle.”