SEPTA defends bomb detectors, security canines

DESPITE NEWS reports suggesting otherwise, SEPTA says that its security canines and GIA Tracker bomb detectors work well.

In February, CBS 3 reported that SEPTA's canines had failed Transportation Security Administration tests. But SEPTA Police Chief Richard Evans said that the five canines supplied by the administration are recertified annually. He showed the Daily News documentation from the TSA showing that all five dogs and their trainers met the current standards in June.

The TSA is "a little more fussy about what our procedures are and how we interact with the dogs, but the dogs have always been capable of detecting explosives," he said. "We had a problem in the beginning of the year, and it was more procedural than anything else."

SEPTA's other four dogs were either donated or purchased using a state grant awarded by former Gov. Ed Rendell. In addition to bomb-detection, those dogs have patrol and apprehension capabilities, Evans said.

In April, NBC 10 questioned whether SEPTA's GIA Trackers are "duds," but both Evans and spokeswoman Jerri Williams said that the trackers work properly.

SEPTA purchased the two machines in 2005 for $601,000, and has spent about $900,000 in federal grant money to upgrade and maintain them since, Williams said yesterday.

Although the devices are used only four or five times a year, Williams said, they shouldn't be judged based on that. She compared them to the firearm she carried when she was an FBI agent.

"I carried a gun for 26 years and never had to use it," she said. "But I would not have wanted to work without it."

Evans said that the machines can calculate whether a package contains explosives, and added that he didn't know how anybody got the idea that they didn't work.

The trackers and dogs are routinely tested using trace simulators of explosives provided by the Department of Homeland Security, the SEPTA officials said.