22
Mar
2014
By Calvin at 08:23 GMT, 12 years ago
You couldn’t make it up!
I’ve just read and watched with a mixture of disbelief and great concern about a New Jersey teenager who managed to thwart the security at 1 World Trade Center (WTC) in New York to take photos!
In a nutshell: After some forward planning at 4 in the morning the lad scrambled through a one foot wide hole in the perimeter fence (apparently used to move building materials?) and then climbed up scaffolding to the sixth floor. He took a lift to the 88th floor (the lift operator has been moved to other duties) and then used the stairs to reach the 104th floor. He walked past the sleeping security guard (who was later sacked) to reach a ladder, which he used to climb to the antenna from where he presumably took lots of photos. At 6am he came back down and was detained in the lobby and taken into custody by Port Authority Police. The young man has been charged with criminal trespass and he could get 90 days in prison.
I think this has been a rather fortunate test of the security weaknesses at the WTC and I have no doubt an enquiry is underway (a hole in the fence, a sleeping guard, a lift operator who didn’t check for identity etc). It’s a good thing he was just taking photos and not planting a bomb!
The UK has its own share of embarrassing security breaches of course - remember Buckingham Palace? One just hopes that lessons really will be learnt and security arrangements (or crime prevention) for obvious criminal target buildings like these will be taken more seriously.
Story source NBC New York: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Teenager-Climbs-World-Trade-Center-Spire-Security-Photos-Trespass-Freedom-Tower-251176781.html?_osource=SocialFlowFB_NYBrand
