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" This is the tenth post of a series by Scott Raab, an Esquire writer at large and New Jersey resident who has covered the Port Authority for years. Read the entire series here. Any doubt that Chris Christie has turned the Port Authority Police Department into his own Republican Guard was erased by the PAPD&amp;#039;s thuggery before, during, and after the Great Ft. Lee Clusterfk. Those cops closed the access lanes, told stuck drivers that Ft. Lee&amp;#039;s mayor was to blame for the debacle, and then lied about it. The PAPD are in no way public servants; they&amp;#039;re a private army taking its orders from Christie and his lieutenants. Just as it may be hard for outlanders to comprehend the scale of the George Washington Bridge hijacking and its impact on the tens of thousands of rush-hour commuters trying to get to their jobs in New York City, it&amp;#039;s not easy to digest the fact that the PAPD force, now ramping up to 2000 officers, is larger than that of many large U.S. cities. For the most part -- and for many years -- their primary responsibility has been as guardians of the PA&amp;#039;s airports, trains, and bus terminal, which is what led the Republican mayoral candidate for New York City to call them &amp;#039;mall cops&amp;#039; during last year&amp;#039;s campaign -- harsh truth. In Esquire&amp;#039;s last feature story about rebuilding the World Trade Center, I detailed Christie&amp;#039;s role in undoing a deal struck in 2008 by the Port and the NYPD giving the city&amp;#039;s 50,000 officers jurisdiction over WTC security. That agreement was not based on politics -- the PAPD cried foul, loudly, on the basis of having lost 37 of its officers on 9/11, but offered no evidence that it was better able to protect the site, from terrorist attacks or anything else, than the NYPD. The deal granted the PAPD primary jurisdiction over the new train station -- a $4 billion money pit, yet unfinished -- and the Freedom Tower.  Enter Christie, in campaign throttle, at an event held by the PA police union to endorse his 2012 re-election bid: &amp;quot;(N)ever \u2014 not ever on my watch \u2014 will there be any other police force who will patrol the new World Trade Center other than the Port Authority police.&amp;quot; He didn&amp;#039;t mean the train station and the Freedom Tower; that&amp;#039;s not why the room went ape. He meant that the 2008 deal signed by the PA&amp;#039;s executive director and the NYPD Commissioner was, by diktat of Chris Christie, a dead letter. During my nine years of reporting stories about the World Trade Center, I&amp;#039;ve asked dozens of law-enforcement and terrorism experts what the chances are of another terrorist attack on Ground Zero. In each and every case, their answer has been the same: 100%.  I have no doubt that I&amp;#039;d find precisely the same unanimity if I asked those experts -- or a thousand folks who live or work close by those 16 acres -- which agency, the PAPD or the NYPD, is better equipped to prevent or respond to any criminal act, terrorist-related or not, at the new WTC. Those whom I have asked consider the question itself to be a joke. It&amp;#039;s no joke. Thanks to Chris Christie -- and to Andrew Cuomo, who has silently allowed Christie to swallow the Port Authority whole -- the safety of the World Trade Center rests in the hands of the same loyal troop willing to wage secret war on New Jersey commuters for the sake of their patron king. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a30861/papd/>