LAFAYETTE, IN — Lafayette police shut down a block of Main Street on Tuesday morning to test a new kind of street barrier one officer describes as “a feat of engineering.”
The street was bracketed from Fourth Street to Fifth Street, with eight white metal barriers about 3 feet tall blocking off Fourth Street and a police SUV on the other end.
Lt. Nicholas Amor said the barriers, 800-pound Meridian Archer brand, would stop an incoming vehicle by rotating on their wheels and sticking a pointed, metal appendage into the ground while another on the opposite side pierced the vehicle’s underbelly, disabling even the largest vehicles.
“Semis, you can find videos on it,” Amor said. “Semis, nothing’s going through one.”
Lafayette bought 16 of the barriers, enough to block two ends of a street to the sidewalks. Amor said they arrived “literally two days ago.” All eight of the blockades are linked together by thick wire.
“If you hit one, you take them all,” Amore said. “It’s not gonna happen. You’re just not moving these things.”
Amor said police plan to block off the area on Main Street from Fourth to Ninth streets for events as soon as Friday’s Destination Downtown block party. He said the detail of downtown event planning necessitated a new plan for the event’s footprint: “We’re not a big fan of winging things.”
The impetus for the new, state-of-the-art blockers were terror events around the world and in the U.S. committed by vehicles, Amor said. He mentioned the New Orleans New Year’s attack earlier this year in which a truck driver killed 14.
Amos said the city plans to expand its inventory of the Meridian blockers, allowing for more effective blockades and less use of police vehicles in that capacity. For now, price stands in the way.
It was not immediately clear what Lafayette paid for the barriers, but other communities have priced them at more than $10,000 each.
“This,” Amor said, “was just the start.”
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Why was a block of Main Street closed Tuesday? Police test advanced street barriers
Reporting by Israel Schuman, Lafayette Journal & Courier / Lafayette Journal & Courier
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
