Administrators, Police Look Back at How Local Security Has Changed

After 9/11, our nation changed. In losing thousands of lives, America got a clearer picture of who some of our enemies are and the ways they could attack at any moment.

As a result, security, both nationally and locally, changed drastically. Airports now more thoroughly check our bags, restricting what we are allowed to carry on to planes. LobbyGuard machines scan licenses as we enter some of our district schools, checking for criminal background.

While the presence of heightened security has grown over the past years though, some officials think security has adapted to changing technology. Regardless of 9/11, which some feel helped push new measures along, security would have eventually evolved on its own to account for new threats to our society.

In Kinnelon, said one example of progress is the implementation of a reverse 9-1-1 system. Through the system, police are able to instantly send messages through email and text messaging to residents' phones, alerting them of emergency situations or community announcements. Kinnelon and utilize the Nixle alert system while Bloomingdale operates the system.

On their own, Finkle said residents have become more aware of who surrounds them on a neighbor-to-neighbor basis.

Because of the continued development of U.S. Homeland Security, Finkle said there are some areas of the borough that are now more heavily monitored.

"There are areas in town that we have to watch more," he said, unable to disclose where those areas are.

Police are also now charged with being more mindful of terrorists throughout the country and in the boroughs.

"I don't remember, before 9/11, having a terrorist watch list," Finkle said.

Finkle is able to receive alerts and reports about the people on the list and where they were last seen. The chief also receives reports about any situations that could affect the United States or New Jersey, including explosions, suspicious devices and more. This includes attacks around the world.

Finkle said he rememembers several borough residents walking into the police department and attempting to obtain gun permits after 9/11.

"I would ask them, 'Are you ready, willing and able to take a person's life?" he said. As many of them said "no," Finkle was able to talk several residents out of the permits.

While Finkle remembers some things changing after 9/11, most of the security measures that changed in the schools changed after the shootings at Columbine High School, in Denver, in 1999.

"Columbine changed law enforcement forever," Finkle said.

Prior to Columbine, police would arrive at the scene of a hostage situation, attempt to negotiate with a shooter and wait for a Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) Team to arrive, Finkle said. Now, as soon as police hear shots fired, they set up the perimeter, but send officers in to try to stop the situation before more people are hurt.

Schools have also increased security in the way of video surveillance and driver's license scanners.

"The whole idea, since 9/11 and Columbine, is to harden the target," said Superintendent James Opiekun.

The Kinnelon school district has made strides to do this with increased security and by keeping all doors in the school locked during the day.

"Making school safer created, really, a whole movement," he said.

Opiekun said that Columbine brought the idea of school violence and attacks on students into the suburban environment and that prior to events such as Columbine and 9/11, school security was not as much on people's minds.

The district used a nearly $100,000 Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools (REMS) grant from the U.S. Department of Education to purchase LobbyGuard systems for each school, which scan driver's licenses. Kinnelon also has a full crisis and emergency management plan in place, which all teachers and staff members are provided information on. Kinnelon's emergency management plan is also posted on their website.

has also utilized money from a REMS grant to increase school security, according to Superintendent Mario Cardinale. Additionally, through a shared services agreement with the Borough of Butler, the school district has implemented a fiber-optic security system that will allow police to monitor what is going on in each school from the police station. Beginning this school year, all of the district's schools have cameras as a result of additional grant funding, which helped pay for 40 percent of the costs of the cameras.

"God forbid there ever were an emergency, the police would have a tremendous opportunity to respond in the most effiient and fast [method]," Cardinale said.

The district is planning to complete a large-scale emergency response simulation to test the district's preparedness in the spring.

All school districts have also had to implement new security drills, in addition to fire drills, which include lockdown drills where students get  under their desks. The Butler district enabled an actual natural disaster response, not a drill, during the spring when tornado warnings were in effect.