Bratton: Paris attacks a 9/11-like game changer

The new team will replace a unit formed after the 9/11 attacks that stationed two officers from each precinct at critical locations around the city, in addition to the NYPD’s Emergency Services Unit.

Days after the Paris attacks, Mayor Bill de Blasio was joined by Police Commissioner William Bratton Monday to announce the formation and deployment of the NYPD’s new Critical Response Command of the counterterrorism bureau.

Reiterating comments he made in the aftermath of the Paris attacks, he said the NYPD’s robust counter-terrorism appartus is prepared for any ISIS threat in the five boroughs. Other teams guard iconic tourist attractions such as Times Square, religious institutions and the French consulate in Manhattan.

The new group is meant to be a rapid-reaction force in the event of a terrorist attack.“The world is changing, even as we stand here, ” Bratton told members of the new detail Monday at a training facility on Randalls Island.

But Bratton said officials will need to determine the “ballistic capabilities of those vests”.

“All of them were equipped with these suicide vests – which are of great concern if you’re asking your officers to rush in”, Bratton said in the ABC7 interview.

“We know that terror can target us any time, anywhere”.

He said the fact that the terrorists picked targets like entertainment venues and restaurants says a lot about the message they are trying to send. “We certainly have many active shooter scenarios, Newtown and others, but as it relates to terrorism they have not yet moved into that realm”.

Bratton said the communication devices used by the terrorists also pose a problem because they are almost impossible to track because they are built to be so well encrypted, as are the apps they are using.

Bratton said later on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that security at soft targets is going to rely very heavily on “public awareness…”

“We work every day based on the premise that they have that capability and what we just saw in Paris, why do we think that would not happen here”, he said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”.