"NYPD cops armed with rifles, submachine guns, body armor and bomb-sniffing dogs will start patrolling the city's subways on Thursday - a first for mass transit in the United States.
Teams of six officers and a dog will patrol subway platforms and trains in 12-hour shifts.
The TORCH teams are being paid for by $151 million from the feds announced in February.
Similarly equipped NYPD units, known as Hercules teams, have patrolled Wall Street and other aboveground icons as part of the NYPD response to the World Trade Center attacks.
'The TORCH teams are Hercules teams with a MetroCard,' a police source said." ...source
