OK Law Enforcement Train In Anti-Terrorism Techniques

An anti-terrorism workshop is better preparing Oklahoma law enforcement for a worst-case-scenario.

Experts who worked the Boston Bombing are in Muskogee putting on the training, and they said Oklahoma set the standard for how officials respond to terror attacks in the U.S.

Law enforcement from all over northeastern Oklahoma spent their Thursday in Muskogee learning anti-terrorism techniques.

The response to the Boston Marathon Bombing is one example Assistant U.S. Attorney Aloke Chakravarty uses in his seminars - a mass causality terror attack that came with many challenges.

“The volume of information and the number of people involved poses a credible challenge just for human processing,” Chakravarty said.

He said responding to something as big as the Boston bombing takes a lot of equipment and resources.

In Boston there was little time, so law enforcement and agencies on the local, state and federal levels teamed together and powered through.

Chakravarty said, “These things are bigger than any one of us. It's all about coming together.”

The assistant U.S. attorney said they were able to find the bombers by what they learned from the Oklahoma City bombing.

“The lessons of how Oklahomans, particularly, responded 20 years ago has informed how we do counter-terrorism response today and our investigations today,” Chakravarty said.

In many other ways, fighting terrorism has changed greatly since then. Technology is much more advanced and we're now dealing with more radicalized individuals and not just large groups.

“It's a human issue, and if it's not one thing today, it'll be another thing tomorrow,” Chakravarty said.

Chakravarty said the best thing any of us can do to fight back is to be more inclusive and to better respect and value one another.

One person might be radicalized in thought process, another might radicalize to violence; experts say no two radicalization processes are the same.