Prague, May 10 (CTK) – Cooperation between the state police and the municipal police must improve to increase the safety of the Prague metro, Interior Minister Milan Chovanec said after debating the issue and the preparedness for emergency situations with managers of the city Public Transport Company (DPP) yesterday.
The meeting was also attended by Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka (Social Democrats, CSSD) and Prague Mayor Adriana Krnacova (ANO).
“A training is needed to achieve better coordination between the state police and the municipal police,” Chovanec (CSSD) said, adding that their joint training might take place in the autumn.
Chovanec said the state police have a special team of almost 100 officers, called METRO.
“If something happened one day, it is necessary for the police [squads] to know the metro system well and cooperate with each other,” Chovanec said.
In future, the safety of the metro and the whole city could improve owing to a new camera system the City Hall is pondering to instal.
The cameras’ main goal is to register undesired phenomena. They are not meant to bother citizens, Krnacova said.
Chovanec said the police will cooperate with the city in choosing the cameras. They should enable to identify the faces of perpetrators, for example, he said.
It is important that the data from the cameras be available to the police, the DPP and the airport staff.
“At present, they cannot detain a person in spite of a founded suspicion they have against them,” Chovanec said.
Earlier yesterday, Sobotka, Chovanec and Krnacova visited the Prague airport to acquaint themselves with its security measures.
rtj/dr/hol
