By Joe Nocera
A few weeks ago, the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival held 1 of its occasional outdoor concerts at a nearby Long Island winery. It was good attended -- 400 concertgoers came to drink vino together with head to the music of Bach together with Django Reinhardt -- but that wasn’t a surprise: Now inwards its 34th year, the music festival is 1 of the mainstays of the Hamptons summertime season.
Here’s what was surprising, according to my friend together with erstwhile New York Times colleague Susan Lehman, who was there: “Driving in,” she emailed me the other day, “it was impossible non to detect ii figures alongside the discussion POLICE emblazoned inwards white on their spruce dark costumes, together with real noticeable automatic weapons inwards their hands.” She added that piece the musicians were on stage, “two armed guards milled around inwards the opened upward infinite inwards the forepart of the tent where the concert was beingness held.” Afterward, when someone inquired nearly the presence of these heavily armed police, he was told that the Southampton 1 police subdivision required the extra protection.
Yes, it’s true, the town of Southampton, New York, alongside its 55,000 year-round residents -- together with its deserved reputation equally a summertime playground for the rich together with famous -- immediately has its real ain counterterrorism squad. Its members were showtime sighted inwards April, when cops wearing bulletproof vests together with carrying fully loaded AR-15s showed upward at the Bridgehampton Half Marathon, where they spent most of their fourth dimension milling around the complete line.
They’ve since “protected” several dozen high-end Hamptons galas together with events, including a big create goodness for the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund, a fundraiser for the James Beard Foundation, the annual Hope inwards the Hamptons number lay on past times St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, together with even a job solid unit of measurement fair that took house at the Children’s Museum of the East End. The children’s museum! Less weaponry was flashed at Hillary Clinton’s Hamptons fundraisers final yr than has been seen at diverse galas around Southampton this summer.
But why? It’s non equally if Southampton has always suffered a terrorist attack. Indeed, Southampton’s constabulary chief, Steven Skrynecki, has repeatedly told the local media that at that topographic point hasn’t been together with then much equally a hint of a threat. But alongside together with then many events attracting wealthy celebrities -- together with alongside terrorist incidents on the ascent inwards many Western countries -- he felt that it was necessary to increase security.
“Many of the people at Southampton events are symbols of American affluence together with success together with capitalism,” Skrynecki told me. “At the same time, at that topographic point is an abundance of liberty of aspect together with morals together with dress. The attendees’ beliefs mightiness endure opposite to the known ideology of terrorist groups.” He also mentioned the possibility that someone on the “ultra right” could crusade to commit an human activity of terrorism at a fundraiser attended past times wealthy liberals.
Well, yes, I suppose something similar that could hand off inwards the Hamptons -- merely equally it could hand off anywhere, at whatever time. The randomness of a bomb going off inwards a packed arena, a gunman killing children inwards a school, a truck barreling into a crowded sidewalk -- that’s the real Definition of terrorism. We know that at that topographic point volition endure terror attacks; that’s the footing nosotros alive in. We merely don’t know when or where. And the notion that at that topographic point is a higher likelihood of an assault on a sleeping accommodation music concert or a job solid unit of measurement fair than, say, an overcrowded Hamptons develop depot on Labor Day weekend (which the constabulary don’t patrol) seems a stretch, to tell the least.
There’s another, to a greater extent than plausible argue Southampton has a 15-person counterterrorism squad. Skrynecki, it would seem, has caught militarization fever, a affliction that equally good many of his beau constabulary chiefs convey also come upward downwards with.
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