U.S. police watch for ‘soft targets’ after Paris attacks

Football fans were greeted by bomb-sniffing dogs and thorough searches at entrance gates as they headed into NFL stadiums on Sunday — some of the many extra security measures employed in cities across the United States as law enforcement officials stepped up their presence in the wake of Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris.

While police departments deployed extra officers to high-profile locations out of an abundance of caution rather than because of any credible threat, experts said that vigilance at “soft targets” like those rocked by violence in the French capital and intelligence-gathering will be key in preventing copycat assaults.

“We have no shortage of soft targets, which is the problem in the sense that we can protect the larger venues, if you will, but the soft targets — we are going to have to rely very heavily on public awareness as we always try to do: see something, say something,” said New York City Police Commissioner William J. Bratton in an interview Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Friday night’s attacks, which left at least 129 dead and more than 300 wounded, unfolded across six locations in the French capital, including a concert hall, a soccer stadium and several cafes in a neighborhood known for its vibrant nightlife.

The enhanced security presence in major American cities included bag searches on subways, deployment of heavily armed police in busy locations such as New York’s Times Square, and officers stationed outside of French-owned sites such as the French Embassy in Washington, D.C.

“You have your visible deterrents with your heavy weapons teams, but you can’t cover everything,” said Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD sergeant and professor of criminal justice at John Jay College. “We have some very soft targets, and they showed how easy those targets can be hit.”

But behind the scenes, federal law enforcement officials were working to gather intelligence on the Paris attacks in an effort to gauge any potential threat to the United States.

“Right now, people are toes to the wall 24/7 trying to determine if there is another threat on the board, and that’s going to be true in the United States, too,” said James Conway, a retired FBI agent and counterterrorism expert. “You can rest assured that things are ratcheted up in terms of vigilance and surveillance, and everything in the entire tool kit of the U.S. intelligence community is being put to use.”

While no credible threat has been uncovered, a U.S. official briefed by the Justice Department told The Associated Press that increased chatter encouraging an attack on the U.S. has been detected.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Friday following the Paris attacks that there is no known threat of any similar attacks planned in the U.S., but that out of an abundance of caution, federal law enforcement agencies are monitoring the events in Paris and are in contact with local police departments across the U.S.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesman declined to comment further about any precautions federal law enforcement agencies are taking at this time.

But as authorities in Belgium arrested three individuals linked to the deadly Paris attacks, experts said American law enforcement agencies will be mining all available data on those involved to determine any links to potential terrorist in the United States.

“People in Washington, D.C., today, the National Counterterrorism Center, are talking to the French to connect the dots between the bad guys, dead or alive, and operators in the United States,” Mr. Conway said.

Although Friday’s events have led to calls from some Republican presidential candidates to tighten border security and halt President Obama’s plan to accept Syrian refugees, experts say the immediate concern is stopping any radicalized jihadis who are already in the U.S. from orchestrating a similar attack.

“The fear is of the inspiration that other sympathizer will take notice of what happened in France and be able to carry out attacks here,” Mr. Giacalone said. “We have seen situations where people operate anonymously here. I think we would be fooling ourselves if we didn’t think they were here already.”

Calling Friday’s attacks a “game changer” for police, Commissioner Bratton said law enforcement has faced obstacles in intelligence gathering recently due to the rapid pace of emerging technology that allows encrypted communication and suggested that change may be needed for the sake of security.

“We in many respects have gone blind as a result of the commercialization and the selling of these devices that cannot be accessed either by the manufacturer or, more importantly, by us in law enforcement, even equipped with search warrants and judicial authority,” Commissioner Bratton said on “Face the Nation.” “This is something that is going to need to be debated very quickly because we cannot continue operating where we are blind.”

That isn’t to say that American law enforcement agencies haven’t had success in detecting potential threats.

FBI Director James Comey disclosed this summer that his agency had arrested more than 10 people who were believed to have been plotting attacks timed around the Fourth of July. While those plots were described at the time as being unsophisticated, and involving guns and knives rather than bombs or other tactics, the Paris attacks showed the amount of damage a coordinated effort involving firearms could do.

The level of coordination and sophistication in the Paris attacks, coupled with the potential desire to focus on soft targets is troubling, Mr. Conway said.

“What that means to me is these guys are trained,” he said. “This to me is a terrorism tradecraft that is not just being inspired but is being directed. We are hitting a new threshold.”