Berlin attack prompts high security in US cities for holiday

In New York City, police dispatched heavily-armed counterterrorism officers to stand guard at crowded pop-up Christmas markets in Union Square, Bryant Park and Columbus Circle only an hour after news broke Tuesday about the carnage in Berlin, where a stolen truck slammed into a crowd and killed 12 people.

The police department also has a program to encourage truck rental companies to report any suspicious interactions with people wanting to rent vehicles that might be used in an attack.

The NYPD program involving outreach to trucking companies was ramped up in July after a man drove a rented, refrigerated truck weighing about 20 tons into a crowd in Nice, France.

[...] the NYPD has reached out to about 140 rental companies and seven truck driving schools in the city, giving them the phone numbers of detectives and encouraging them to use them, said Lt. Lucas Miller, who runs the Intelligence Division program.

Jake Jacoby, president of the Truck Renting and Leasing Association in Alexandria, Virginia, said his group has worked with the Transportation Security Administration and other federal agencies to combat terror.