Washington-area residents are doing what they were asked to do in reporting suspicious people and packages, but that might not apply to transit officials. On edge following the recent London bombings, passengers on one of the district’s Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority’s subways were quick Friday to alert train workers when they saw an unattended backpack, The Washington Post reported. But passengers said the suspicious bag remained untouched as the train went through two more stations before the train was stopped. “It was an inadequate response, to say the least,” Elaine Donnelly, A National Geographic Society librarian who was in the middle car, told the Post. “I saw the head of the transit police talk recently about all the things they were doing — all this extra security. But that didn’t seem to jibe with the experience that I had.” The backpack reportedly contained two baseball caps and belonged to a child who had left it on the train. © Copyright 2005 by United Press International

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