Officials pledge 'massive resources' to keep New Yorkers and visitors safe on 9/11
NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea and other officials vowed Friday to keep New York City safe on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack.
"I absolutely guarantee the safety of the city tomorrow. Come out and enjoy New York. It’s the greatest city in the world," said Shea, who added that the city faced no credible threats of a possible terrorist attack.
New Yorkers should expect a massive security presence at the 9/11 memorial site and across the city this weekend as the anniversary is commemorated Saturday, officials said.
Shea reiterated that the NYPD had not detected any credible or specific threats to the city.
"It is thousands of uniformed and civilian members, overlayed with bomb detection and overlayed with long guns as the governor said and that should reassure people, not alarm people," said Shea, who spoke following an NYPD briefing at police headquarters in Manhattan on 9/11 security measures to officials including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Gov. Kathy Hochul.
NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, who also attended the security briefing, said it was important to strike the right balance between protecting public safety and ensuring "our rights and liberties are protected at all times."
"You’re going to see a lot of presence, but not just at Ground Zero," de Blasio said. "You’re going to see presence all over the city. We do not regard Ground Zero as the only potential target tomorrow. We are going to protect the whole city. … Massive resources will be deployed to protect all New Yorkers and our visitors."
Hochul said the anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center represented a "vulnerable weekend" for the city, but said law enforcement’s visible presence would create a deterrent.
"The idea is to let anyone know, you mess with New York, there will be consequences," Hochul said.
Mayorkas said the lack of a credible threat of a terrorist attack extended beyond New York to elsewhere in the country.
"Allow me to echo what the commissioner articulated very, very clearly: There is no specific credible threat to the homeland arising from any terrorist organization or any terrorist individual," Mayorkas said.
The secretary explained how the focus of security and law enforcement has shifted from the "foreign terrorist fighter" coming from overseas to commit attacks who was identified as the biggest threat after 9/11, to the "homegrown terrorist" who was radicalized by a foreign terrorist organization, typically online.
Another threat that has emerged recently, Mayorkas said, is the "domestic violent extremist," who he described as "the individual who’s radicalized by an ideology of hate or false narratives spread on social media or other online platforms and is drawn to violence because of that."
"As the threat evolves, that doesn’t mean that the prior iteration of that threat disappears," Mayorkas said. "But rather, we see a rise in prominence of a new threat and we keep our eye and our focus and our energies and the extraordinary talent of the people in uniform who dedicate their lives to the safety and security of American residents. It is because of them, we watch all of the threats."
Nicole Fuller is Newsday's senior criminal justice reporter. She began working at Newsday in 2012 and previously covered local government.
