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After the U.S. airstrikes crippled Iranian nuclear sites on Saturday night, a travel security expert said it is imperative for Americans to have a plan to escape to safety in the event of an attack on a travel hub.
Robert McDonald was a Secret Service agent for more than 20 years and is an expert in executive protection, intelligence and protective travel logistics. During that time, he coordinated security for U.S. and foreign dignitary visits.
Now, he is a professor of criminal justice at the University of New Haven.
“There are those type of areas where people are coming and going. People are transient. Lots of people go there every day,” he told Fox News Digital in reference to airports and bus and train stations. “Anything can happen at any time. Again, you’ve just got to be able to be cognizant of your surroundings, be situationally aware and be able to get yourself out of a situation if something was to happen.”
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“We don’t wish anything to happen, but you just got to be able to get yourself out of a particular zone relatively quick,” he said.
The same principle applies to any crowded place, both indoors and out, McDonald said. Being “situationally aware” includes being on the lookout for anything that seems out of place in day-to-day life. He clarified that “out of place” is different for everyone.
“For example, if you go to a mall or Times Square and you see a backpack lying on the corner with nobody around it, or it hasn’t moved in a while, you might want to report that,” he said.
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“If there are particular cars in and around your neighborhood that are not normally there, it could be nothing,” McDonald said. “It could be a visitor to your neighbor, but it could be something out of the ordinary that you would want to potentially report.”
With regard to reporting suspicious activity, McDonald assured Americans that law enforcement entities want to be tipped off to anything suspicious, even if it turns out there is no threat.
“Authorities want to hear from you and want to be able to investigate things that are out of the ordinary,” he said. “You may be the only person that’s noticing that something is out of the ordinary, and we have a responsibility to pass that information forward to authorities. Let them come and decide that the issue is a non-issue, right.”
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Since Saturday’s bombings in Iran, a leading state sponsor of Islamic terrorism, major metropolitan areas including New York, Los Angeles, Washington and Miami have stepped up security protocols.
Fox News contributor Paul Mauro, a former NYPD inspector who monitored terror cells, told Fox News Digital that police are upping patrols, particularly at relevant religious sites, and also monitoring for online chatter from potential terror threats.
“[NYPD] will put out special attention patrol cars at locations that could track to the conflict in places that have an Israeli connection, and there’s a couple of Shia mosques – Iran is Shia – and there are a couple of Shia mosques,” Mauro told Fox News Digital. “You never know what’s going to develop. So [they’ll] liaise with those communities. They’ll talk to them, they’ll put special patrol, special attention patrol.”
“You’re going to look very closely online,” he said. “You’re going to be monitoring a lot of the online stuff. NYPD has a very robust cyber counterterrorism program, and you’re going to do that very heavily.”
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