Transcript: Mayor de Blasio and Comissioner Bratton Announce First Deployment Of NYPD's New Critical Response Command

November 16, 2015

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good afternoon, officers. I want to tell you at the outset, we are very, very proud of you today. The people of this city are very appreciative that you have decided to do this crucial work to protect all of us.

You are not only part of the finest police force in the nation and in this world – you are in fact the best of the best. You are part of the first deployment of the Critical Response Command. You are now part of the front line of this city’s defense against terrorism.

I hope you feel the pride that we feel in you – that I know your families feel in you – that you made this decision to serve in this crucial command, and that, starting today, you are going to make a difference on the streets of this city.

Commissioner Bratton, I’ve said many times, is the finest police leader in this nation. He has decades of experience keeping people safe. Part of what I appreciate deeply about your leader is that he never stops innovating – he never stops looking for the next thing we need to do as we deal with an ever changing world.

And we started this discussion last year, and then intensified it after I visited Paris in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack. I saw firsthand what the current look of terrorism means – what it means to people in a city that was put through such pain and now is experiencing it again. Commissioner Bratton and Deputy Commissioner Miller – their whole team – focused on the kind of changes we needed to make, the kind of upgrades we needed to make to keep us safe and to be able to respond to any situation thrown at us.

You are standing here as a result of those deliberations, as a result of the recognition that we had to take our efforts to the next level, and create an ever stronger and better force to deal with the realities of the world we live in.

And you are here not a moment too soon, as we reflect with real sorrow on what our brothers and sisters in Paris went through just a few days ago. We feel such a close connection to that city historically. France was our first ally as a nation, and they have gone through such pain this year – while that also underscores the urgency of your mission: how important it is, how timely it is.

You have gotten some of the very best training available anywhere on this earth to prepare you for this mission, and now it is time to put that training into action in this city. We will support you every step of the way. We will support this unit and we will support all other elements of the NYPD as we confront these new realities.

Over the last two years, we have invested in new vests to protect our officers; new technology to make sure our officers had the most up to date information instantly, no matter where they were; new training to make sure you are ready for any tactical situation; additional officers who will soon be joining us to strengthen this department and its reach.

Now, with you, with this elite group, we are taking our efforts to the next level. We know, because of everything the NYPD has done over the years, but now with this crucial additional capacity, we are the best equipped city in America to deal with any terrorist threat. We know there is no city that is better prepared to defend against terrorism or to respond to any attack, should we encounter one.

I want to thank you for being in the front line of that effort. On behalf of all 8.5 million New Yorkers, a profound thanks to you for stepping forward to be a part of this crucial command.

With that, I want to bring forward the man who is responsible for the safety of the people of this city every day, and who had the vision to see that we needed to add this additional capacity. I want to thank him for his great leadership – Commissioner Bill Bratton.

Commissioner William Bratton, NYPD: Thank you.

Good afternoon. It’s great to look out at you and be here for the first tour of duty that you are going to perform in your new capacity: Critical Response Command – replacing the Critical Response Vehicle Initiative that was created shortly after 9/11 to supplement the 600 men and women of the Emergency Service Unit, who are our first line of critical defense against terrorist-related actions.

You now, over this period of time, have received additional training, and in the weeks and months ahead will receive more training, additional equipment that will allow you to do the job for which you have volunteered. And I want to thank you for volunteering for this assignment.

Eventually, there will be about 560 of you. A little later this afternoon, I will be addressing 180 of your colleagues at the old Police Academy, who are going through the training that you have just completed. They will be graduating in several weeks and joining you on the streets of New York.

Over the next several days, you will also be issued the smartphone devices that will be such a significant part of your counterterrorism responsibility, keeping you updated to the moment on changing patterns, trends, and threat analysis. Additionally, you will all be receiving training on the long guns and the heavy vest equipment that you will be outfitted with going forward. In addition, we will be acquiring the new explorer-type vehicles that will be part of your standard vehicle package.

You are a work in progress. We estimate by January 1st, as we move toward New Year’s Eve, you will be fully up and running for that event – the first major event that you all – 500-sum-odd of you – will be involved in.

The world is changing even as we stand here. The world changed dramatically over the weekend. And the assignment for which you have volunteered – that assignment – there is now no more essential assignment in the world of policing, in the NYPD than that assignment. That threat is growing and morphing in new and dangerous directions, as evidenced by the events in Paris. We will endeavor to keep you trained, to keep you equipped, to keep you focused – to protect this city, to protect each other, to protect the citizens of New York and the 59 million visitors who come here each year to enjoy all that this city has to offer.

I encourage you to be vigilant. I encourage you at all times to be professional. I encourage you at all times to understand the significant responsibilities you have agreed to accept, first upon taking your oath of office as a New York City police officer and now in this new assignment – this critical assignment.

And we are very fortunate that the planning we began over a year ago to create this unit – you are coming into being at just the right time, as the threat picture has changed so dramatically, and the threat picture that is changing and evolving is one that you are being prepared to meet, to deter – and if it were to in fact occur, that you will be equipped to go into harm’s way and equipped in a way to protect yourselves, protect each other, and to protect the citizens of this great city.

Thank you for volunteering for this assignment, and I look forward to seeing you on the streets of New York in the days and weeks ahead.

With that, I would like to introduce the Commanding Officer of our Counterterrorism Bureau, Chief James Waters, who has been so instrumental in creating this new command.

We have been very heavily engaged in the modernization of this facility behind me, which will be your new home, your new headquarters. I want to thank the mayor and the administration for the tremendous amount of funding that is being put into this endeavor, both to remodel this facility; all the equipment that you will be utilizing; the amount of training that you have already received; the additional training that you will be receiving in the months ahead. But behind it all is Chief Waters, with his many years of experience – first under Commissioner Kelly and now under myself. And the expertise that he brings to this assignment is second to none.

So, Jim, if you could, I would like have the privilege of turning out the first platoon of your new command.

[…]

Mayor: Well, as you just saw a few moments ago, we are taking our anti-terrorism efforts to the next level. We just employed our first 100 officers of the Critical Response Command. This is the new elite squad of the NYPD Counter Terrorism Bureau, created from the work we did over the spring into June, where we agreed with the City Council to add additional resources to expand our police force, and that included the resources for the CRC Command. When fully staffed, the command will be over 500 strong, including over 450 dedicated anti-terrorism officers and their superior officers.

I want to, at the outset, thank some of the key players in this effort and people who really deserve our thanks every day for what they do for New York City – our Chief of the Counter Terrorism Bureau, Jim Waters; our Chief of Patrol, Carlos Gomez; our Chief of the Special Operations Division, Harry Weeden; Chief and Commanding Officer of the Emergency Services Unit Vincent Giordano; Deputy Chief Steven Hughes, Commanding Officer for the Strategic Response Group; Inspector Scott Shanley, Commanding Officer of the newly created CRC group unit you’ve seen here; and from the fire department, our Chief of Department Jim Leonard.

As we’ve said, it’s a new reality we’re facing here. We know that terror can target us anytime, anywhere. We have to be ready for that and the answer is to prepare even more intensely; to do even more to prevent terror; to be able to respond to terror if, God forbid, we encounter it here in this city. We have seen truly tragic events over the last few days – most notably in Paris, but we also have to recognize the attack on the airliner in Egypt; the attack in Beirut. They all have a common link in ISIS, and underscores for us just how critical it is to have our own capacity to deal with each and every situation.

When I’ve talked to people from Paris in these last few days, one thing they say immediately is they know the people of New York City understand this pain and they understand this threat, because we went through something that very, very few places have experienced on 9/11. We went through a terrorist attack that taught us that we had to protect ourselves, and that is what we have proceeded to do in the years since. We know our city is the chief terror target in this country. We live with that reality, and it requires us to be vigilant every single day. I am often asked if we are at a heightened state of vigilance, and I remind everyone we are vigilant every day. Some day we take – sometimes we take additional measures, but we are vigilant every day, and we have been for 14 years. Starting last year, Commissioner Bratton and I discussed new measures that would be necessary for this changing environment. We talked about the possibility of a specially trained counter terrorism force. Earlier this year, he bought me a specific proposal as part of his overall vision of enhanced public safety for this city including neighborhood policing and other core elements. I had just come back from visiting Paris in the wake of the attacks in January, and it was evident to me that we needed this additional capacity. And part of it as you have seen played out today is a specially trained, specially equipped unit ready to respond to any incident on a moment’s notice, but also crucial to our efforts to prevent these incidents to begin with.

NYPD has learned from the attacks around the world; NYPD studied the Charlie Hebdo attack carefully; studied the Mumbai attack years earlier; has been preparing for years for the possibility of a multiple location attack. But we also knew we wanted to keep building our capacity.

I want to express my appreciation to the City Council and to Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito for their willingness to not only add additional officers, who will be part of their efforts in precincts all over the city, but also to add the officers for the Critical Response Command. Part of why we have succeeded as a city over 14 years in stopping attacks is because of a strong foundation that was built by our predecessors. And we knew we had to add to that. We knew it was important to take that to the next level and add additional capacity for the now even more difficult situation we face.

We also knew that we had to deepen our partnership with the federal agencies we rely on every day – the FBI, and Homeland Security, and all the other agencies who are crucial to the prevention of terrorism. Those relationships have continued to deepen. And I want to thank all of our federal partners, and I especially want to thank Commissioner Bratton, who has been devoted to making those relationships stronger than ever. I can dare say they are at their strongest and closest they have been since 9/11. We believe in investing in the men and women who protect us. We believe in keeping them safe and giving them the best training, the best equipment, the best protective gear, the best technology – for their safety, for the community’s safety – but to also give them greater capacity to deal with these new threats. We have invested – we will continue to invest.

And now, with this new Critical Response Command, we can say more certainly than ever before that no city in America is better prepared to defend against terrorism; no city in America is better prepared to respond to terrorism than New York City. Make no mistake – we are using every tool in our arsenal to stop the terrorists and to protect the safety of the people of this city.

I just want to say a few words in Spanish before I present Commissioner Bratton, and Commissioner Nigro, and Assistant Director Diego Rodriguez of the FBI.

[Mayor speaks in Spanish]

With that, the author of these innovations and changes that are making us stronger – and we as a city are blessed to have him as our commissioner – Commissioner Bill Bratton.

Commissioner Bratton: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, sir.

Good afternoon. If I may, I’d like to just give you a quick synopsis of the CRC – Critical Response Command. The entity will be headquartered in the building behind me, which is in the process of being remodeled. It was formally the home of the – years ago, the Street Crime Unit, and is now being outfitted to be the home for the 500 plus officers and eight K-9 dogs that will be assigned to this command.

It was purposely chosen for this unit, in that it has immediate access to the Tri-borough Bridge Complex that gives us immediate access into three of our boroughs, and then from those boroughs into the other two. It also is immediately adjacent to one of Harbor Unit facilities right next door, so if we needed to move people quickly by boat onto the waterways, we have those facilities adjacent to this complex.

The officers are all volunteers. They have all been interviewed, selected; have received training on the very critical issues of counter-terrorism, protection of facilities, and sites. They will be equipped, as all our of our personnel will be, with a smartphone technology that will allow for instant messaging to each and every one of them, updating on the locations they’re protecting as well as as threats are emerging.

Additionally, the vehicle fleet that they will be working out of is in the process of beginning to be delivered. Those vehicles will be specially equipped with the gun boxes, the heavy equipment that they will be utilizing, with the long guns and the heavy vests.

They are expected to have both an offense and a defense role – defense, certainly, every day, routinely to protect critical infrastructure sites around the city, or as in the event, such as the last several days – right now, additional protection to French interests here in the city. Also, they have been trained and will receive continuous expanding training on dealing with active shooter scenarios such as we just recently witnessed in Paris, France, so that we will have – at any given time, they’ll be 100-some-odd of these officers on duty in the city.

These officers will be the officers that will be equipped to go towards the danger, the offense; to take on those that might be seeking to perpetuate armed attacks in the city. We now have in the department three entities that are specifically trained, will be totally equipped, and totally coordinated with each other to provide a significant in-depth ability for offense and defense – because dealing with terrorism requires both.

We have a phenomenal Counter-Terrorism Intelligence Operation that is effectively offense – gathering information and intelligence to prevent attacks from occurring. But then we do have the capability, if attacked, to go immediately onto defense to protect [inaudible] to the best of our ability, but then to go on offense to basically – to take back what we might have lost.

That counter-terrorism capability is second-to-none in the nation, and it is further buttress – further buttressed by the close collaboration we have with our colleagues in the federal government – and the head of the FBI office will speak in a few moments. I can’t tell you how much we work on having seamless interaction between all the entities involved in protecting this city, and by protecting this city, this county.

In addition to these 500-some-odd personnel, we have the 600 officers in the Emergency Service Unit that those of you based in New York are very familiar with. At any given time, we have 20
of their trucks moving around the city with their highly trained officers, always highly equipped with every piece of equipment conceivable to go toward the attack, to protect against the attack.

In addition, we have created what will soon be 800 personnel in our SRG, Strategic Response Group. Those officers, similarly, will be in the explorer vehicles, also equipped when necessary during these types of threats with long guns. They are going to provide an additional resource when necessary to deal with issues of terrorism.

We are also in the process of training the whole patrol force to deal with active shooters. We have put 3,000 of our officers through that training already and we are training additional hundreds each week, so that by June of next year, we will put the whole patrol force through that training to strengthen our ability to, if necessary, go on the offense – but to always strengthen the very significant abilities we have to defend this city.

I want to thank the Mayor for his commitment early on last year, when this concept of all these units was proposed to him. We had to spend a lot of time justifying what we were looking to do, and that resulted in the budget process we went through, where we got the 1,300 additional officers, the 400 additional civilians that frees up 400 more officers. So by June of next year, we’ll have the equivalent of 2,000 additional police officers on the streets of New York, half of them in these units – first expansion of the department after 12 years of decline in the size of the department. Additionally, the equipment, the resources, we’re funded for all of that also. So, there’s been no shortage of infrastructure support, no shortage of acquisition of personnel to keep the city safe.

But to keep the city safe requires collaboration and coordination among all its agencies. Reflective of that are the many drills that we do with our colleagues in the New York City Fire Department, the Fire Department of New York City, as well as the many tabletop exercises we engage in with our colleagues in the Bureau.

With that, I’d like to – with the mayor’s permission, introduce our Fire Commissioner Nigro, who will speak to their role in working with us on the protection of the city, and then the mayor will introduce a close friend and colleague from the FBI, who is an essential partner in all that we do to protect this city. Dan.

[…]

Mayor: Thank you very much, Dan.

There are – it is really important, I think, for the people of this city to understand, is there is very few relationships more important to our safety and security than the relationship between the NYPD and the FBI. We depend on the FBI literally every hour of every day to provide information, to be our partners in developing strategies.

This work, over the last two years, has become seamless. Again, tremendous credit to Commissioner Bratton for his focus on strengthening the relationship, but I want to thank Director Comey for his efforts, and I want to say, locally, we have been blessed to have, in charge of the New York City office, Assistant Director Diego Rodriguez, who has been a constant colleague for all of us here in New York City – has been a partner; he’s been in constant communication. He, too, is an innovator who has helped us to figure out new strategies and how to best confront this ever changing world. So, I want the people of New York City to know that you are also safer because of the leadership of the FBI and their constant partnership with us. And with that, I welcome Assistant Director Diego Rodriguez.

[…]

Mayor: Thank you very much. With that, we are going to take questions on this topic.

Question: [Inaudible] could you please tell us, now that you have dispatched personnel from the New York Field Office to Paris, what is the information you are getting back from the scene, what role are your personnel taking as [inaudible] to the investigation and just anything you could [inaudible], in terms of helping us to understand what’s transpired there?

Assistant Director in Charge Diego Rodriguez, FBI New York Field Office: So, when we work with other international entities – in this case, France – or any other government, we have our legal attachés in over 70 countries that we work with. In this case, it’s our – our legal attaché in Paris. And as you can imagine, it’s very – still very chaotic there to get some of the information. What we do is when we send folks over there, we – we send them over there so that they can work in collaboration with our legal attaché, who is working with the local police departments, just like we would do here. In the event that something occurred, we would have people reaching out to us, and we would then reach out to the NYPD in this case to provide them information. So at this time, we are trying to just get any information that might tie us back to this city, that we might have to conduct any further investigation.

Question: Have you gotten any kind of [inaudible] like that?

Assistant Director in Charge Rodriguez: At this time, no.

Mayor: Steve, you are going to call on them? Steve, you will do the [inaudible]?

Question: About how many cops [inaudible] previously in counterterrorism [inaudible]?

Commissioner Bratton: Well, if Chief Waters – I will ask Chief Waters to speak to that. Jimmy, the question is in terms of the 500-some-odd officers that are being recruited into this unit, how many of them may have had previous counterterrorism experience? All of them would have, because all of them would have probably worked the old concept of Critical Response Vehicle, where we would bring a car in from every precinct of the city and they would be assigned to these fixed posts around the city for counterterrorism purposes. So they have had that experience over the years. But we feel going forward, that level of experience is not sufficient to deal with the emerging threats that we are anticipating, so that – [inaudible] the equipment, the long guns, the heavy vests, the training, the constant training – we are ramping it up so that we are not pulling cars out of the precincts every day, with different officers from all over the city coming in. Jimmy will have 500 committed officers who are used to working together, who trained together, who are specifically volunteering for this very critical assignment. So we are strengthening the capability of the city to protect against an attack, and if we were to have one, using officers who are much more highly trained. The other benefit is that every precinct in the city, every tour of duty gets an additional police car with two officers, that gets to remain in that precinct. So we have the added benefit of a dedicated unit, and every precinct in the city gets more cops.

Over here, if I may, please.

Mayor: Do you want – would you want Jimmy to add anything?

Commissioner Bratton: Let me just speak [inaudible], Mr. Mayor.

Question: [Inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: No, in the sense that what we try to prepare for is all eventualities – so, the lone wolf concept, the single actor or maybe two people acting together. We have certainly seen over the years in New York almost 20 instances of activity similar to that that have been thwarted. The events in Paris, the element that we first recognized in Mumbai when I was Chief of Police in Los Angeles – within 60 days of that event in Los Angeles, John Miller, who at that time was an Assistant Director of the FBI, came out to give a presentation on what they had learned in Mumbai. We totally changed how the LAPD would respond to that incident – equipped hundreds of more officers with long guns, training to deal with multiple incidents occurring. We have the capacity now in New York City to deal with almost two dozen multiple events occurring in the city, with all of the resources we have available. So we can deal with the lone wolf, or we can deal with what appears to be the case in Paris, the coordinated multiple attack.

Question: [Inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: Definitely. The question is, are there aspects of this attack [inaudible] were troubling. One, that every one of them quite obviously intended to die – they all, if I understand the intelligence that we have received so far, were equipped with suicide vests, if you will; that the equipment they utilized, the AK-47 type capability and whatever explosive devices they were using; that they came to kill, and they came to kill as many people as they can. The lone wolf often times can get – kill a number of people, but these multiple attacks, as we clearly saw here – 129 deaths and some several hundred, many of whom are in critical condition – that those are new elements. Also, we want to understand about those vests, because as our officers rush in to active shooter scenarios, to the best of our ability we want to be able to give them intelligence about what they might be up against as they are moving into those locations, if we encounter a similar type of situation here in New York City or in the United States.

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: [Inaudible] louder, please.

Question: [Inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: The question references the concern about encrypted messages, that – one of the areas that we have – seek additional information from our French colleagues and, as Diego has referenced, the purpose of having FBI agents and hopefully later – in [inaudible] week, maybe – additional New York detectives over there, is, what was the communication system they were utilizing? The concern is, one, that there appeared to have been no detection of this attack on the part of the French intelligence, which is one of the best intelligence services in the world. So that gives one indication that somehow or another, they were able to operate in the dark. Two, we will seek to understand what are they retrieving from the seven assailants whose remains they have recovered – what type of devices were they using for communication? What type of smartphone, what types of apps, possibly, on that phone? Many apps are out there now that encrypt messages instantly. Many of the smartphones that are manufactured now are encrypted devices that don’t allow us to fulfill our law enforcement obligations, because we can’t see into them. So, we are very concerned with the French experience, as to how they kept something as significant as this hidden from the French authorities, as well as the U.S. authorities that are continually scanning the airwaves, if you will. So we are going to watch very closely – how did they communicate? The issue of going dark is something that the Director of the FBI, James Comey, has spoken about frequently, eloquently, and passionately. We are very concerned in law enforcement that one of our most critical tools, the ability to gather intelligence through court orders as well as the laws we operate under, has been significantly impacted by this encryption technology that is growing rapidly. And on the part of our commercial entities, that they are consciously designing these systems so that we can’t get into them with court orders. It’s impeding our ability in terrorism; it’s impeding our ability in dealing with cybercrime. And the full magnitude of it we really don’t know at this juncture, but it is getting worse instead of better.

Question: [Inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: The question is that some of the reports coming out that – as yet unconfirmed, uncorroborated, as best I can tell – about their interacting with each other on PlayStation-type technology – game technology that we’re not [inaudible]. Diego and I discussed that in our earlier meeting, and I can’t corroborate that – I’m not sure what the sources of those stories are. At this juncture, I have no official intelligence as to what the communication systems were used by the terrorists, either during the action or in the run up to the action in Paris. So that – whatever those sources are that – I can’t confirm that.

Question: [Inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: The question she has – she’s based with the Staten Island newspaper – about the Staten Island ferries, that a while back, we had beefed up the security on the ferry as well as on opposite ends of it. And – I’m not going to go into detail – the provisions that we have for protecting those ferries, which would be a combination of our traditional police resources as well as, certainly, our capabilities with our aviation and our harbor units. So those ferries are very well protected at this juncture, and would be one of those areas of concentration, as you might imagine, that – in this city that is very reliant on people moving about on our waterways.

Question: [Inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: Let me ask Chief Waters to bring you up to speed on some of the training they have already received, additional training that will be forthcoming, and then the continuing collaborative training that they will be going through. You’re already aware of the very significant amounts of training we’ve been doing in so many areas in this city. There’s never been a time in the history of the department where we’re committing so much time and resources to it, but that’s going to expand with the addition of these new units; not only the CRC, but the SRG – an emergency service unit – you all know how extensively they train for the multiplicity of skills that they possess. Jimmy?

Chief James Waters, NYPD: So, prior to their assignment, many of the officers received some level of counter-terrorism training while they were in precincts. So they would come to counter-terrorism and receive, perhaps, like the commissioner referred before 3,000 people have – members of the department have received active shooter training. They also have received radiological detection training, explosive-trace detection training, and they worked the Delta [inaudible], so they were able to work the [inaudible] and the Delta [inaudible] when we have the U.N. General Assembly. In addition, we came up with a program a couple of years ago to bridge the gap. They were the counter-terrorism officer program where we took selected people from each precinct throughout the city and we gave them several weeks of training. Some of the people that we picked up – I guess the answer to the earlier question is of all the people that have come here no one was in counter-terrorism prior to this. However, they were counter-terrorism officers, CTOs assigned to precincts, and they had received a number of courses along the way while assigned to patrol and the other assignments that they had. Since being transferred, they got two weeks of training in the last two weeks. But that training will be continuous as Commissioner Bratton and the mayor have spoken about many times, the training will be ongoing, you know, forever with respect to the long gun training and everything that we learned from Paris and what we’ve learned from the other events that have happened around the world – we look at that; we analyze that, and then we translate that and turn that into training, and we inform the officers as such.

Question: [inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: That‘s a good question. The question is about the new reality and it is a new reality, as it relates to ISIS. I think ISIS clearly showed over the last number of days that they are in some respects almost surpassing Al-Qaeda in areas of expertise that Al-Qaeda long sought to operate; the placing of a bomb on a plane; the use of major explosives for massive casualties, and now the events – the multiple attacks in an urban center. So, it is a  new reality as it relates to ISIS, which had up to now been concentrated largely in Syria; creating the [inaudible] and through their mastery of social media attempting to recruit recruits to Syria, but also inspire lone wolves around the world. So, in dealing with that new reality some of what we have to also be constantly focused on is not only our significant areas such as a Times Square or many of the tourist attractions, our stadiums, our major events, but the soft targets. The selection, I think, of the stadium – soccer – being attended by the president of the country – the soft targets are restaurants; the soft target of a concert venue were consciously chosen for their symbolic value as well as the ease with which they could attack them. Mindful of that one of the things we are fortunate in New York – speaking about our city – is the very large resources we have to work with. So we can in fact strengthen very significantly the more traditional hard targets, the one that would have phenomenal symbolism if they were ever to attack it successfully, but also the training we’ll be giving all of our precinct personnel and we’re expanding that training dramatically with our NCO and pilot precinct program, with the additional thousands of officers that will now have these counter-terrorism capabilities. We will have the ability to spontaneously show up at a mall, particularly, with the holiday seasons coming up – that you expect that not on the planned basis, but as we’ve done with the Critical Response Vehicle concept over the last number of years then all of a sudden they are there – not expected but they are there. And we’re lucky we have that ability to move them around based on intelligence or just the idea of constantly trying to keep the terrorist potentially off-guard if you will.

Question: [inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: Question, if I understand it is the idea that my comment about – they come to kill – Mumbai clearly showed that – up until Mumbai, based on the American experience, the Columbine, a lone actor shooter situation, that we had gone in to basically stop the shooting or we had projected that if hostages were taken we can negotiate. Nobody does hostage negotiation better than the units of the NYPD as led by the several gentlemen behind me. I was trained by the NYPD in 1975 as a hostage negotiator – extensive training. These people, if they take hostages, it’s only to prolong the event because they intend to kill them. So we operate on the assumption if we have one of these attacks their intention is to kill everybody that they get their hands on. So we will move very quickly to move in to stop that threat. That’s the reality of what we’re dealing with. This is a very different type of situation than, historically, we would have dealt with. This also speaks to the second portion of the question about the intelligence. All the more important to understand, if we can, when we do have access to the intelligence that an attack is being planned, what the nature of it is, what the focus is, but we are starting with the basic assumption that these exercises, these attacks are all intended to kill as many people as quickly as possible in as flamboyant a fashion as possible.

Question: [inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: The training that our personnel receive, and thankfully that we have men and women who understand their obligations as police officers – when they take that oath is to go toward the danger. So the training that we give them is to the best of our ability to try to keep them safe as they move forward understanding what they’re going toward; the equipment that we’re trying to give them – the new equipment that we’re buying and to the best of our ability, as Chief Waters talked about, to learn from what has changed that the next time there’s an incident that we might be able to give our officers intelligence to work with that might save their lives as well as the people they’re trying to save. We have, clearly, those officers you just saw here as well as the many other thousands – if something happens today as we’re standing here, tonight, they are going to go into that danger and not run away from it.

Question: [inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: It’s a very good comment – the idea – the availability of guns in the United States; that we have some of the toughest gun laws here in New York, but just on our traditional crime we clearly see the widespread use and prevalence of firearms. I’ll be very frank with you, in American policing, for 20 some odd years, particularly since the growth of terrorism, we have wondered why we don’t have more terrorist related incidents involving guns, that the efforts they go to, to create – make bombs etc., elaborate schemes when there’s such a ready availability of high-powered fire power in this country. We really don’t understand why. We certainly have many active shooter scenarios, Newtown and others, but as it relates to terrorism, that’s – they have not yet moved into a realm of just using, in this country, ready available fire arms.

Question: [inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: Let me ask Chief Waters to speak specifically to the weaponry issue and we’re in the process hopefully of also modernizing our rangers to accommodate all the training we’re going to have to do with all these weapons that – because you have to keep them skilled with these weapons that requires a lot of training but we have spent a lot of time researching what is the best weapons or weapons to assist these officers, whether it’s emergency service unit, with our SWAT teams, or these officers that might be engaged with active shooters. Chief Waters.

Chief Waters: I’m sorry you could just repeat the first part of the question?

Question: [inaudible]

Chief Waters: So, they’re – they’re called M4 semiautomatic weapons.

Question: [inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: In terms of the incident in Paris that – we’d handle it as any other incident of that nature, that the department, in its many layers of skill sets, things start happening on their own, in the sense of John Miller in counter-terrorism working with Chief Waters, Chief Galati, would begin their process, the – Chief Gomez, chief of patrol, would begin his processes. And I think, as you saw, within very short order, we had large numbers of officers rolling out into – in front of all the French areas of interest in the city as well as other high profile sites such as Times Square, some of the entertainment venues we knew we were going to have in place on that weekend. So, one of the things that we’ve tried to build into the organization, not just myself but also my predecessors before me, is an organization through its leadership depth, effectively understands when something happens, it moves almost on its own in beginning to respond. So, it doesn’t require, if you will, a waiting for a directive. These parts are all moving almost simultaneously and you clearly saw that, I think, in the events over the weekend, as those events in Paris began to unfold and I’m very very pleased with the response of the department. Also, JTTF gears up very very quickly, our federal colleagues were on the phone very quickly with Diego in terms of talking about ‘what are you hearing’ versus ‘what we’re hearing.’ So part of what we do is, at my level, is to start calling around to the respective leadership of the various agencies. But the department itself is – is really moving in many different ways based on the table-top, based on the training that we continuously do.

Question: So, the NYPD has long been noted for its hostage negotiating. You’re saying, in terms of terrorism [inaudible].

Commissioner Bratton: Effectively, that as we’ve seen over the years, dealing with these individuals, that Mumbai, the only reason they took hostages was to prolong the media exposure. There was every intent to kill everybody that they got their hands on and they did. And so, we begin with the premise that, when dealing with these terrorists, that it’s all about: kill. It’s not about negotiate and if it’s about negotiate, it’s only to buy time to attract even more media exposure or to potentially distract from other activities that they might be seeking to engage in. So, at all costs, our first obligation, our first response is to try to drive the speed of our actions to save as many lives as possible to basically, diminish the threat which means taking them out before they can kill others. And that’s part of what we’ll try to learn from the Paris experience, in the sense of what the Paris police officials run into, how long did it take them to get into the building, how soon did they understand they these people may have been equipped with suicide vests, which presents another [inaudible] danger to first responders going in after them.

Question: [inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: I’m not hearing that question, is it for the mayor?

Mayor: She’s asking about refugees [inaudible] you anticipate the refugees might be [inaudible] –

Commissioner Bratton: Okay, up until this time the number of refugees coming from that part of the world have been [inaudible] that – I think that’s clearly an issue of concern in Europe and something that the President and government leaders have been speaking to, in terms of, if and when they are allowed to come in from that part of the world based on some of the government plans at the national level – that the screening efforts that they will make to ensure that those coming in are in fact qualified to come in, will be very extensive. And I think, based on what just happened that those qualifications – levels will certainly be looked at very closely to ensure – that they ensure the safety from the American public from what just occurred in Paris.

Unknown: Thank you all, thanks mayor.

Mayor: Thank you.