US: Five British tourists discovered just how jittery New York has become in the wake of the London bombings when they were taken from a sight-seeing bus on Sunday and handcuffed because a bus operator thought they looked suspicious.
New York mayor Michael Bloomberg called the office of British consul Sir Philip Thomas on Monday to apologise personally for the arrests. Mr Bloomberg defended the police, saying: "They have to react in this day and age and take evidence at face value."
The mayor acknowledged, however, that "they had a show of force that probably doesn't make good reading in the paper".
The incident happened on Sunday morning on 51st between Eighth Avenue and Broadway when a Gray Line bus supervisor reported to police that five suspicious-looking men with back-packs had boarded his vehicle.
Police cordoned off the street to traffic for 1½ hours while they ordered all 60 passengers off the bus and searched their bags.
The five men were handcuffed and forced to kneel on the sidewalk in front of dozens of onlookers while police stood guard.
It turned out they had no backpacks and were set free after 10 minutes.
Police said the men, all British Sikhs from Birmingham - Baljh Sahota, Chauinder Gill, Jackjit Singh, Askhad Addokou and Johal-Singtt Cashant - did not pose any threat.
Less than an hour after this incident police evacuated Pennsylvania Station after a man falsely claimed to have a bomb in his bag.
In Brooklyn, police evacuated several office buildings and shops when a briefcase was discovered chained to a fire hydrant.
The bomb squad carried out a controlled explosion but it did not contain explosives. Reports of suspicious packages are common in New York, but since the London tube bombings on July 7th the number of such reports by a more alert and more frightened population has escalated from 804 in the same period last year to 1,476.
Random police searches of passengers' bags began on the city subway last week and have now been extended to commuter lines into New York, including the Long Island railroad and the Path commuter railroad that brings passengers from New Jersey to downtown Manhattan.
The number of police officers patrolling the subway system has doubled in the last three weeks - producing a fall in crime at underground stations by 22 per cent.
The arrest of the five has raised concerns about racial profiling.
The American Civil Liberties Union has begun monitoring the policy of searching people without cause, which it sees as an infringement of civil liberties.
Mayor Bloomberg announced that no one would be arrested for not submitting to a search, but anyone who refused to co-operate would be banned from using public transport.
The New York Times warned yesterday that searches "must be done in an even-handed way".