All this, even though records show that the FBI had no evidence of a specific threat to this, or any, US Coptic church, just general concerns that they relayed to the police.
“I felt like we were in a war,’’ recalled Ben Mbugua, who lives across the street from St. Mark’s. “I feel like Iraq was not even that well defended.’’
That’s the kind of heightened security that a flood of federal grant money can buy. Ten years after the Sept. 11 attacks triggered a massive effort to improve American defenses against terrorism, police forces across the country are armed with high-tech equipment they could not have afforded before the Department of Homeland Security began doling out $40 billion for local emergency preparedness, including $500 million to Massachusetts.
While homeland security has bulked up, local law enforcement has, thankfully, had little use for all the new gear. Since the raw months after Sept. 11 when the National Guard was dispatched to airports and politicians advocated antiaircraft guns for nuclear plants, there have been only two major terror attacks with multiple deaths in the United States: the murder of 13 at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009, and the anthrax attacks of 2001, which killed five.
As time has passed, the public has become gradually less fearful - and less patient with intrusive security measures such as full-body scans at airports, much less SWAT teams at church services. We haven’t grown complacent about the likelihood of another major attack - indeed, most expect one, as a new Globe poll (see accompanying story on A9) makes clear. But we no longer organize our lives around that risk.
