TRAPPING CRIMINALS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20792, 7 February 1931, Page 2 (Supplement)

TRAPPING CRIMINALS.

CORDON ROUND LONDON. FLASHLIGHT SIGNAL SYSTEM. PLACING POLICE ON ALERT. The City of London is shortly to be surrounded by an invisible electric wall, which will at a minute's notice close,- by police all entrances to and exits from the city. "Smash and grab" men, motorbandits and criminals of all kinds will find all avenues of escape barred to them within sixty seconds of the discovery of their crimes. It will be impossible for a " wanted" vehicle to pass the city boundaries, and it Ayill be extremely difficult even for individuals to escape, since, in cases of great emergency, even public transport vehicles could bo inspected. Fifty-two electric signals operated simultaneously will put the entire city police force on the alert. Each of these red signal lamps will be fixed prominently on top of the present police ambulance telephone call boxes, and the alarm will be given by flashing the lights from a central control board at city police headquarters in Old Jewry. Police officers on seeing the flashing lights will go at once to the telephones

and receive a description of the vehicle to be stopped, men to be arrested or other special orders. The post office is cooperating with the police in devising the technical equipment necessary for the operation of the new warning system. This new plan to defeat criminals was revealed by Sir Hugh Turnbull, Commissioner of Police for the City of London, who recently returned from a visit to the United States, where he studied transatlantic police methods. The system was devised by Sir Hugh before ho went to America, and nothing he has seen there has been an improvement on it. "It will mean," he said, " that in the case of a motor-bandit raid a policeman telephones headquarters, and within a few seconds the fifty-two lights flash and instructions are given to all police on duly at the city boundaries." The city will, as soon as the system is in operation early this year, become a trap, easy for criminals to enter, but from which escape will bo almost impossible.