NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — The NYPD is ramping up security across the entire city for the 20th anniversary of 9/11, but there have still been no "specific" or "credible" threats to the five boroughs, officials said at a security briefing Friday afternoon.
The NYPD held a the briefing at its headquarters in lower Manhattan at 2 p.m. with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Gov. Kathy Hochul, Mayor Bill de Blasio and law enforcement partners.
De Blasio continued to emphasize that the city had not received any "credible threats," but said the NYPD was "watching not daily, not hourly, minute by minute, with extraordinary intelligence gathering and counterterrorism capacity which we have built up in recent years."
“You are going to see a presence all over this city," he said. "We do not regard Ground Zero as the only potential target tomorrow. We are going to protect the entire city."
"Massive resources will be deployed to protect all New Yorkers and our visitors," he added. "And we are watching constantly.”
NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea echoed the mayor's remarks.
“I absolutely guarantee the safety of the city tomorrow," Shea said. "Come out and enjoy New York. It’s the greatest city in the world.”
At de Blasio's morning briefing, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism, John Miller, said that the department is still “treating this as an elevated threat environment” given the significance of the date and recent events.
“We’ve seen the call to action this year be louder and better organized from terrorist groups than we have seen in prior years,” Miller said. “That is probably because this 9/11 remembrance marks the 20th anniversary, but it also comes at the same time as the fall of a U.S.-supported government in Afghanistan, the return of the Taliban and other factors that are stirring those conversations.”
Miller also cited recent propaganda from Al-Qaida glorifying the 9/11 hijackers, as well as recent terrorist attacks, including at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan and at a supermarket in Auckland, New Zealand.
“We operate on the idea that there is a threat out there and that we have to continuously hunt for that before the event, during the event, after the event, and not just at the event, but around the city,” Miller said.
There will be extremely tight security as hundreds of people go to the 9/11 Memorial for a ceremony on Saturday.
At Friday’s briefing, officials are expected to speak in detail about the various measures that visitors can expect.
Miller said the NYPD has worked with federal, state, local and private partners and “developed a robust security overlay for the upcoming ceremony.”
He said the security plan has been developed over many months. It includes explosive detection canines, heavy weapons teams, explosive detection instruments, license plate readers, radiological and chemical sensors, cameras, magnetometers, the bomb squad, plainclothes officers, counter drone detection teams, and more.
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