Los Angeles’ subway is first in US to install body scanners, looking for suicide vests and assault rifles

Los Angeles’ subway will become the first mass transit system in the US to install body scanners that screen passengers for weapons and explosives, officials said Tuesday.

The deployment of the portable scanners, which project waves to do full-body screenings of passengers walking through a station without slowing them down, will happen in the coming months, said Alex Wiggins, who runs the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s law enforcement division.

The machines scan for metallic and non-metallic objects on a person’s body, can detect suspicious items from nine metres away and can scan more than 2,000 passengers per hour.

“We’re dealing with persistent threats to our transportation systems in our country,” said Transportation Security Administration Administrator David Pekoske. “Our job is to ensure security in the transportation systems so that a terrorist incident does not happen on our watch.”

On Tuesday, Pekoske and other officials demonstrated the new machines, which are being purchased from ThruVision, which is headquartered in the United Kingdom.