Former New York Police Commissioner Howard Safir warned Sunday that despite the best efforts of authorities, the city is still vulnerable to terror attacks like the November 13 events that killed 130 and injured 350.
"There is no reason to believe that we’re not vulnerable," Safir said Sunday on
"The Cats Roundtable" on AM 970 in New York. "There are so many soft targets in the city that we cannot be everywhere. What changed the dynamics in Paris is that instead of heading for some of the iconic targets like the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre, they picked a local restaurant, they picked a theater."
Current Commissioner Bill Bratton is doing a great job, "but you can’t be everywhere," Safir told host John Catsimatidis. "So we have to be vigilant.”
Current Deputy Commissioner John Miller also was a guest, and told Catsimatidis the department is working to learn from the Paris attacks.
"If you look at Paris, what you see is people who were probably trained, hardened fighters who fought in Syria, who then were smuggled into Europe, who got together and did this," Miller said. "Our counterterrorism force that we’ve been building is geared to go up against just that kind of attacker, if need be.”
The force will have 525 uniform counterterrorism officers to add to the 1,000 already on hand, he said, "out, trained, armed, prepared, ready to go, which puts us ahead of any other city in the United States by far, and likely any other city in the world."
Miller said beefed-up security for Thursday's Thanksgiving Day parade was "flawless."
As for the rest of the holiday season, he said, "Leave the worrying and the planning to us."
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