The New York City Police Department is bracing to work “long hours” in the event of potential unrest from small “core groups” of agitators following Election Day, but confirmed on Tuesday afternoon that no threats had been reported so far, officials said.
Chief of Department Terence Monahan said during a Tuesday afternoon the NYPD does not expect any major incidents and has not yet come across any social media intelligence to indicate a threat. He said police officers have been at every polling station in the city since before 6 a.m.
“The NYPD, as always, will facilitate any possible peaceful protest,” Monahan told reporters outside police headquarters. “But my message to anyone who wants to cause violence and destruction is, ‘Don’t even try it. We know who you are and you will be arrested.’”
Monahan, the highest-ranking uniformed officer within the NYPD, urged peaceful protesters to keep separate from any agitators, and asked them not to “provide protection for those who want to cause mayhem.”
The NYPD confirmed to Fox News that the department has “contingency plans in place to freeze areas of Manhattan should wide scale looting occur,” meaning the department would establish car and pedestrian-free zones.
Monahan said the NYPD does not expect to need to implement the contingency plans, but is prepared to do so based on past looting incidents.
Police Commissioner Dermot Shea told Spectrum NY1 earlier in the day police personnel across all ranks are on alert throughout the city.
New York Police Department officers patrol during a protest against the Far Right on November 1, 2020, in New York City. (KENA BETANCUR/AFP via Getty Images)
“[There are] certainly some unanswered questioned in terms of how long they’ll be working, but we’re prepared, we’re ready and we’re looking forward to it,” the top cop said. “Everyone should get out there and vote, and we’ll move forward from there.”
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The NYPD is said to boast the largest police force in the country, with roughly 36,000 sworn officers and 16,000 civilian employees. The city is no stranger to spurts of unrest, as happened in the wake of the Minnesota police-involved death of George Floyd at the end of May.
Policemen surround a NYPD vehicle after it was vandalized by protestors over the death of George Floyd, a black man who was in police custody in Minneapolis, on Saturday, May 30, 2020, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)
Much like in other parts of the country, what started as peaceful protests devolved into destruction and looting.
“There’s one or two core groups of very, very small groups of individuals that will protest the sky being blue,” Shea said. “And I don’t know that they’re going away anytime soon. I don’t know that they really care who wins this election, either."
The unrest continued in the Big Apple, at times, throughout the summer and into the fall.
On Tuesday, Shea said the department has “zero information” to indicate there will be post-election mayhem, but promised officers will be out “in force” just in case.
“They’re going to have zero tolerance for it,” Shea said. "... People cannot be just let go and not prosecuted, they need to face consequences.”
In recent months, New York has mostly seen peaceful protests, with 20 to 30 demonstrations held each day in the past week or so, Shea said.
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"We’ll deal with them," he said of any post-election trouble-makers. "The message to all New Yorkers is: Go about your life. Get out there. Vote today."
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