BUFFALO, N.Y. — Employees of Erie County’s Rath Building in downtown Buffalo, who normally don’t have to pass through security to go to work, were surprised on Thursday morning to find that they would have to.
The result was a long line of workers, some of whom expressed frustration privately about the measure.
County Spokesperson Peter Anderson described it as a “random check”, which will be far from an everyday occurrence.
“It’s the usual policy for members of the public who come to the Rath building to go through the magnetometers and metal detectors. But today, as part of the county security plan, for the first time we're doing a random check of employees and the public as well. Everyone who comes through the building this morning is going through the metal detector," Anderson said.
Among those waiting in line was County Executive Mark Poloncarz, who claimed the measure was taken upon the recommendation and requirement of the Department of Homeland Security.
“Homeland Security recommended that we do this because we don't have security protocols where employees which prevents them from bringing things into the building," said Poloncarz. “So it was recommended by Homeland Security and some of our grants are based on doing these random checks now and again...and they require us to do that"
Some county employees who wished to remain anonymous expressed some doubt about the claim made by Poloncarz, and as of late Thursday, the county had yet to provide any documents -as we requested- to back up that claim.
However, Anderson provided additional details, saying in an e-mail that in 2016 representatives of Homeland Security met with county officials to conduct a threat assessment on the building.
This resulted, according to Anderson, in many security measures which have already been completed. These included closing the Main Place Mall garage ramp that runs under the Rath building, replacing & upgrading the glass panels in the front of the building, installing the metal detectors, installing new doors on the Franklin and Pearl street sides, and revising the Rath garage security & parking policy.
In the meantime, with 3,000 workers, and only one metal detector to pass through, there were lots of employees who were late for work.
According to Anderson, they have nothing to worry about.
“No one no will be docked for any time. Everyone will be paid for their regular day,” he said.
"Once we put the metal detector up for visitors we confiscated a lot of weapons and a lot of drugs," said Poloncarz. I'm hoping we don't confiscate anything today that because that would mean an employee was bringing in contraband they weren't supposed to. If it works out well we may not do many of these in the future. But we do confiscate drugs and weapons, then we'll have to consider doing more of these and reminding our employees about what the rules are."
Poloncarz later tweeted that several employees, upon seeing the line, were then observed walking away...indicating that perhaps they did have something they shouldn't have.
The county had no information available late Thursday as to whether any employee was found to have contraband.
However, they may not have had anything to worry about.
According to sources, as the line grew longer, and despite the metal detectors going off, employees were just being waved through without being thoroughly scanned in order to get to work.