WI: Terrorists Use LA Freeway System in Terrorist Attack?

What if a terrorist team deliberately created diversions across the Los Angeles freeway system all at once with the aim of being able to conduct a large scale attack in multiple locations such as a chemical weapons attack or mass shooting? How could it compare to 9/11?
 

GarethC

Donor
Sorry, I don't think I understand - are you suggesting that the freeway system itself is the target? So by staging a number of accidents simultaneously, the terrorists trap large numbers of travellers on the freeway and then attack them?

Or are you more trying to use staged incidents to funnel larger numbers of victims to a separate planned attack?

A highway is not a good location for chemical weapons usage, just because the usually-elevated road section speeds dispersal of the agent.

A mass shooting is not likely to be as deadly as Paris or Mumbai, where the police response was not as prompt as might have been hoped - freeways are good places for police to respond to, with surveillance cameras, regular highway patrols, good visibility for aerial surveillance and emergency lanes for SWAT teams to drive down.

A bigger risk is an incident at an indoor arena - basketball, ice hockey, wrestling, or a concert like in Paris, where the confined space will slow the dispersal of chemicals, the limited access to the venue will constrain the ability of police or armed forces to get to the terrorists to intervene, and fire or CS gas could cause deaths due to crushing alone.
 
Attacking the roads would be a nice supplement to a primary attack, but in termns of destruction & killing its not a big payoff in itself. Several car bombs at a couple major intersection & a couple high density choke points on the freeway would add to the chaos. For a longer term effect some quickly placed demolition charges on overpass support would create problems. They dont have to collapse the over pass, just cause enough damage that extended engineering assesment & possiblly repair would cause the road to be closed.

If the road is a critical service route into a major industrial district or port then there are some economic cosequences.
 
Attacking the roads would be a nice supplement to a primary attack, but in termns of destruction & killing its not a big payoff in itself. Several car bombs at a couple major intersection & a couple high density choke points on the freeway would add to the chaos. For a longer term effect some quickly placed demolition charges on overpass support would create problems. They dont have to collapse the over pass, just cause enough damage that extended engineering assesment & possiblly repair would cause the road to be closed.

If the road is a critical service route into a major industrial district or port then there are some economic cosequences.

having spent plenty of time in LA traffic it is just as likely they take the wrong exit or get stuck somewhere far from their intended target

as to an attack, a few men with satchel charges running up to stalled tanker trucks would kill a bunch of people. Bringing down the overpasses though is harder than you might think, they are earthquake rated and all have been retrofitted
 
I don't know much of LA traffic patterns apart from the massive traffic jams at times, but I think if they went with car/truck or motorcycle bombs or a mix of all 3 could cause more death and damage than attacking bridge supports or tunnels. The infrastructure as mentioned by Galveston would have been designed to withstand earthquakes. But vehicle born bombs however, with the factor of varying sizes of car truck and motorcycle, would kill more people I feel.

Cars have the basic size and will be in the middle of a traffic jam, with more directions for a blast wave to hit people. A truck, while larger will still only kill people on 3 sides as they usually take the furthest left or right lanes (I'm not too sure though, but they won't take the middle lane too often). And bikes while they can deliver bombs to maybe specific assassination targets or towards tankers or vehicles with flammable materials, the bombs they carry won't be large enough to cause deaths I imagine.

A shooting spree won't much work either for the reasons said for the ability for the Swat to arrive quickly. But say maybe a sniper aiming at a traffic jam? It would be in an interior setting which would slow response there as mentioned, and the panic could be more as the shots would be appearing from nowhere. The only issue there would be factor of wind-resistance and the length away from the "perch" as per usual with a sniper.
 

ben0628

Banned
Get several terrorists with rpgs (rocket propelled grenades) and a lot of ammo on a highway overpass and shit would hit the fan.

As for quick police and swat response that people are talking about, I am a little skeptical. With all of that traffic and chaos, that would slow down the response from law enforcement tremendously and emergency lanes could be blocked as well.

Overall causalities however probably wouldn't reach 9/11 levels. There are much better targets for terrorists, especially if there using gas.
 
To create maximum confusion: drive a car bomb alongside a tanker truck and detonate as you pass a major choke-point (e.g. tunnel under LAX).
 
To create maximum confusion: drive a car bomb alongside a tanker truck and detonate as you pass a major choke-point (e.g. tunnel under LAX).

easier and less risk of detection if you just have two guys hop out of the car and plant a satchel charge and use a short fuse. They spray down the neighboring cars with gun fire until the tanker explodes.

The amount of explosives needed for a car bomb increase your risk of exposure and thus being caught before your plan works
 
Alternatively we could be seen as valuable figures in the fight for terrorism-preparation and analytics :p I for one would love to get into the job of disaster and terrorism preparation like the exercises that go on in Singapore yearly. Gonna need some creative minds and analyzers to create the scenarios :winkytongue:
 
Some of us already have experience with gov't agents telling us to "shut the @&$?! up!"
Judges call it "contempt outside the court."
 
Care to elaborate? I've observed some local LE rouge efforts at suppresion & am curious about others experience. Will take your msg privately if you like.
 
Gov't intimidating witness

I am okay with talking in public about " contempt outside the court" and "intimidating witnesses."

8 years ago I was injured in a plane crash. Long list of injuries .............
Lawsuits are still ongoing as we approach the 8th anniversary of the crash.

During "hearings for discovery" I made sarcastic comments about "Transport Canada being 16 years behind the times."
During the second " hearing for discovery" a defense lawyer dragged up a check that I had forgotten to mention on my federal income tax return. Then I got a mysterious bill for back-taxes a few months later???????
Odd how only 2 people have asked about that check and it is odd how the questions were only a few months apart????????

I perceived that bill for back taxes as an attempt to silence an embarrassing witness. Every time someone (lawyers representing: WorkSafeBC, Transport Canada, airplane owners, Great West Life, the last American mechanic who worked on the airplane, the last Canadian AMO who worked on the airplane, Pratt&Whitney of Canada, Hamilton-Sunstrand, the Superior Court of British Columbia, the Globe and Mail newspaper, the wreckage laying on public display at Pitt Meadows Airport, etc.) it Prolongs my Traumatic Stress to the point that damages during the trial exceed damages during the cash.
GRRRRRRR!

Now I just wish that the accursed lawyers would finish the lawsuit - before the 8th anniversary of the crash.
GRRRRRR!
 
Thanks. Back in the 1950s there were some cases in Illinois of silencing political opposition by having a friendly judge sign a warrant committing them to the state mental hospital. By the time the poor schmuck got out of the loony bin his reputation and often his income were in ruin.

Closer to home we had a County judge and several police officers convicted of running a burglary operation. They specialized in antique fire arms and stamp/coin collections. I've turned up two independant rumors that a witness to related criminal activity was subject to a police organized assasination.
 
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