Yes, the same folks who tell you to take off your shoes, put your laptop in a separate bin, make sure you don’t have any coins in your pocket, are coming aboard the Chicago Metra trains.
Mark Brown
The Chicago Sun-Times
CHICAGO — Remember how a Secret Service agent boarded a Metra train this past winter while wearing his gun, which freaked out a ticket agent, who alerted police, who called in a SWAT team, which freaked out the rest of the passengers as the heavily armed officers swooped down on the unsuspecting Secret Service guy?
Well, consider this a public service announcement in the interest of making sure our suburban rail commuters don’t get another scare like that.
Metra is alerting its riders that they will soon see federal Transportation Security Administration personnel patrolling their commuter trains.
The so-called VIPR teams — that’s short for Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response and pronounced “viper” for those of you keen on law enforcement acronyms — will consist of federal air marshals, transportation security officers, TSA-certified canine teams, surface transportation security inspectors and local law enforcement.
