Police Let Terrorist Slip By

Well, this doesn’t look great for the men in blue. Port Authority police had been told to stop and search the car of Najibullah Zazi as he approached the George Washington Bridge in New York last September, but for some reason, waved him on, missing out on seizing the two pounds of explosives in Zazi’s vehicle. Failure to act on a tip from the FBI has been controversial among New York police but never before disclosed publicly; NYPD believe Port Authority police could have caused a terrible gaffe with the Zazi case. But Port Authority police say searching Zazi’s car would have been difficult, since they had stopped him at a fake drug checkpoint and did not have a warrant. NYPD detectives were accused of stepping on toes in the Zazi case when they talked to an imam who was an informant but later accused of telling Zazi that police were after him. (The imam’s lawyer says Zazi was tipped off by the staged drug checkpoint instead.) Shortly after the search, Zazi ditched his explosives, fearing he was under surveillance. He later admitted to being trained by al Qaeda and planning a subway attack using the explosives.