On 8th Anniversary of 9/11, Law Enforcement Says SC Is Safer

As the nation remembers the 9/11 terrorist attacks eight years ago, a lot of people may be wondering whether we’re any safer than we were just before those attacks.

Richard Schwartz of Columbia doesn’t think we’re any safer because of the perception of our country in the rest of the world. “People don’t trust the United States as they perhaps once did, so we have to regain that trust,“ he says.

But Shirley Hamilton of Columbia disagrees. “I feel safer now because now I think we’re aware that we need to be on guard and on watch of what’s happening and taking care of America,“ she says.

Most of that job falls to law enforcement, which was criticized immediately after 9/11 when it was discovered that intelligence agencies missed warning signs about the 9/11 attacks.

Because of 9/11, and to encourage different agencies to share vital information about possible terrorist activity, so-called “fusion centers” were created around the country, including one in South Carolina. There, analysts from federal, state and local law enforcement and state agencies share tips, clues and information.

“It’s just a great concept here of sharing information, trying to connect dots on the side of information sharing as it pertains to terrorism and suspicious activity,“ says Capt. Roger Owens of the State Law Enforcement Division.

SLED Chief Reggie Lloyd says, “We’re constantly picking up parts of investigations or parts of plots that touch on South Carolina as well as other parts of the United States. And we use it not only to combat possible terrorism that either targets South Carolina sites or comes through South Carolina, but we’ve also used those resources to target criminal activity in the state.“

The official name for South Carolina’s fusion center is the South Carolina Information and Intelligence Center. As an example of what it does, it helped recently with the information gathering and analysis of multiple murders in Cherokee County that, it turned out, were committed by a man from North Carolina, Patrick Tracy Burris.

The state has also received millions of dollars in federal grants since 9/11 to pay for new law enforcement equipment and training for police and emergency responders.