Cops: ‘Very difficult’ to prep for attack like one in Vegas

By Nicole Fullernicole.fuller@newsday.com @NicoleFullerOctober 2, 2017

Police on Long Island and in target-rich New York City, equipped with military-style weapons and extensive training, said Monday they stand ready to respond to any possible attack similar to the mass shooting in Las Vegas.

Upcoming outdoor concerts and other large gatherings will see stepped-up security — more uniformed cops for visibilty, police helicopters in the sky and other measures not apparent to the public — after Sunday’s attack in Las Vegas police left 59 people dead and more than 500 injured, police said.

Police in Las Vegas say a lone gunman opened fire from his high-rise hotel room on a crowd attending a country music festival, using a automatic military-style weapon to carry out the attack — the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. The gunman apparently committed suicide as the police closed in on him.

“When an individual takes a high vantage point like they did, it makes it very difficult to prepare for something like that,” said Nassau Acting Commissioner Patrick Ryder, adding that such tactics force police to “think outside the box and look towards how we can better prepare to keep the people of Nassau County safe.”

The NYPD, with the largest counterterrorism operation among police departments in the country, typically assigns a three-person anti-sniper team to any large assembly in the city, according to a law enforcement official, who contended the team would “mitigate” a threat like the Las Vegas shooter relatively quickly.

While police on Long Island and in New York said there are no credible threats of mass casualty violence, the NYPD said it had deployed extra officers to strategic locations after the Vegas attack.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, speaking at an unrelated event in Harlem, said: “The NYPD sees no connection to anything here, no threat that this implies for New York City.”

Nassau and Suffolk counties have in recent years equipped its patrol forces with rifles and helmets — equipment usually reserved for its specialized tactical units — as an acknowledgement that patrol officers are often the first on the scene in an active shooter situation.

Officials in both counties said police work closely with officials at large concert venues such as the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, ahead of events.

Suffolk Police Commissioner Timothy Sini said the department had recently received a $500,000 state grant, with about half of the funds slated to purchase more rifles and ballistics equipment for its patrol force and the rest for the county’s smaller departments.

“We’re not gonna be in a situation in Suffolk County where we’re outgunned by criminals,” Sini said, adding that such weapons are only used for active shooter scenarios and terror attacks.

“We can’t give the illusion that we can prevent every single terrorist attack or active shooter scenerio. And the situation like last night, just shows how difficult it is to do that, but certainly aviation is helpful. It does give you a bird’s eye view of a large area.”

While police invest heavily in intelligence-gathering operations to ward off attacks, they agree that members of the public are often key in helping cops prevent attacks.

“The vast majority of active shooters say something at some point or exhibit some sort of behavior that indicates that they’re going to commit violence,” Sini said. “If you hear something or see something that doesn’t feel right, you should act on it. Trust your gut.”

Nassau’s Bureau of Special Operations, its heavily armed SWAT team-like unit, runs through physical training daily and firearms and tactical drills on a weekly basis. Both departments also own armored vehicles and have helicopters with video technology that can be shared real-time with commanders on the ground.

With Anthony M. DeStefano, William Murphy and Laura Figueroa