NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton rode the 6 train Friday from One Police Plaza to Grand Central Terminal, where he met with a pair of counter-terrorism officers and their dog Apache to reassure New Yorkers that the transit system is safe.
“As you noticed, they are very crowded,” he said of the subways.
“They’re obviously not too fearful. I took the subway today, it’s a gridlock day. It’s the fastest way to get back and forth, so I do that quite frequently.”
“New Yorkers are a fairly resilient lot. We’ll go with the flow. We’re in this together. And what we’re in together, we live in the world’s greatest city. Let’s enjoy it. It’s safe; it’s secure. We’re coming into the all-time great time of the year,” he said.
“These next six weeks, it’s what’s New York’s all about: the Thanksgiving Day parade, the Christmas tree lighting, New Year’s Eve. In addition to performing my professional responsibility, I intend to enjoy all of them at the same time.”
He also repeated that the NYPD is not aware of any credible terror threats, but is prepared for the worst.
“As you know, ISIS has been continuing threatening the city and the country, as well as Washington,” Bratton said.
“And we are clearly seeing the events of the last week, their capabilities. That is why we are continuing to increase our response, in terms of visibility, we are very fortunate that we have a number of new units that are coming online,” he said, referring to the Critical Response Command.
And despite the lack of a credible threat, the top cop said the department would be ready to quickly respond to any terrorist attack.
“We feel that we are still very well prepared on the defense protection side that if an event were to occur … that we’d be prepared to respond to it. I want to emphasize, what the terrorists are attempting to do with a lot of the videos and the magazines is to spread fear. I encourage people not engage in that spreading of fear,” he said.
He was also critical of reports that some schools on Long Island have canceled trips to the Big Apple out of fears for the students’ safety.
“I think that’s totally, totally uncalled for. This city is safe and secure and what they are doing is exactly what the terrorists want. That is exactly what they should not be doing. If that’s in fact happening, that’s really out of line,” he fumed.