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New York City (NYC) authorities are operating under a “heightened threat environment” in the hours ahead of tonight’s New Year’s Eve celebration.

At a Monday press conference alongside Mayor Eric Adams, New York Police Department (NYPD) Commissioner Jessica Tische said that while the department isn’t aware of any specific credible threats, they’ve nevertheless been operating in a “heightened threat environment” since the Oct. 7th terror attack.

“We remain vigilant,” Tische told reporters. “The public can expect to see a tremendous amount of police resources deployed throughout the area and across the city. That includes members of some of our elite specialized units, including our emergency services unit, who will be strategically deployed throughout the area on rooftops.”

“Our K-9 teams, who will patrol with bomb-sniffing dogs. Our aviation unit will be in the skies scanning the event and the surrounding areas with special attention to the bridges and other landmarks. And of course, our drones will be deployed overhead to monitor the crowds in real-time and watch for any suspicious or unusual activity,” she added.

During the Monday presser, a reporter asked whether the NYPD is pursuing any extra security measures in the wake of the recent Christmas market terror attack in Germany last week.

“Every year we formulate our plan based on incidents that are happening around the world, here in the city,” NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism Rebecca Weiner replied.

“Christmas markets – you just flagged a terrible incident in Germany involving Christmas markets – they’re a persistent, high-risk target, and so, frankly, are New Year’s Eve celebrations around the world, which is why we put so much emphasis on all of the resources that are here focused on keeping this city and this event safe. So it’s absolutely calibrated to what’s happening overseas,” she added.

The bureau was also asked about what threat, if any, that Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang members pose to New York Eve celebrators.

Weiner for her part said she’s unaware of any specific threat involving the Venezuelan prison gang, stressing that TdA is “just something persistently that we deal with in the large panoply of crime issues that we are very good at handling all year.”

“There’s been a ton of work being done by our detective bureau, patrol bureau, our bureau over in intel and counterterrorism,” she explained. “This is an issue that we’re dealing with not specific to New Year’s Eve, Times Square. But some newly emergent threats, newly emergent crime patterns that we have, again, tried to combat very early and very deeply so that we haven’t had the entrenchment of some of this gang here in the city that you’ve seen elsewhere across the country.”

Some of the security measures that the NYPD intends to pursue include having pickpocket and “hotel response teams” handy to monitor for suspicious activity, creating safety lanes using blocker cars and concrete barriers, and sealing or removing all manholes, mailboxes, vending machines, and litter baskets.

“And, as always, there will be plenty of security measures that you will not see,” Commissioner Tische said. “No one handles large-scale events like this better than the NYPD, but of course, we do not do it alone. The Joint Operations Center will be fully activated with all of our city, state, and federal partners.”

Meanwhile, according to a Department of Homeland Security memo viewed by NBC News, NYC and the rest of the country continue “to face a heightened and dynamic threat environment amid ongoing geopolitical conflicts, which may contribute to mobilizing a variety of extremists and malicious actors to violence against mass gatherings, iconic locations, and high-profile events.”

“The Israel-Hamas conflict has created a heightened threat environment; therefore, the Intelligence Community remains concerned about lone offenders encouraging threats of violence against Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and Arab communities in response to the ongoing conflict,” the memo continues.

Vivek Saxena
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