By Rocco Parascandola and Shant Shahrigian
New York Daily News
NEW YORK — The NYPD will have hundreds of officers at the ready in case there are any disturbances during early voting in the presidential election and afterwards, police brass said Tuesday.
“It is no secret that this election is more contentious [than] in years past,” NYPD Chief of Department Terence Monahan said at a press conference. “For that reason ... our plan also includes the ability to respond to any type of incident that may occur.”
He said police will be at all 1,201 polling locations in the city, 88 of which are expected to open Saturday for early voting.
Starting next Monday, “hundreds” of cops will be prepared to respond to any incidents at polling sites, according to Monahan.
The NYPD hasn’t gotten any intel about specific threats, he added.
But with activists expected to turn out in force come Nov. 3, the NYPD has been holding “refreshers” for officers on crowd control and doing tabletop exercises and reviews of past demonstrations, according to Monahan.
“Look at what’s going on around the country, what’s happening in other cities,” he said. “So we’re more prepared. We’ve done more training.”
At a separate press conference, Mayor de Blasio said the city will be ready for any demonstrations sparked by the presidential election.
“We have to protect the right to protest and we expect and should be ready for a lot of peaceful protest.”
Both he and Monahan insisted that the recent endorsement of Trump by the city’s largest cop union, the Police Benevolent Association, doesn’t present a conflict of interest for officers.
“The PBA leadership does not speak for the men and women of the NYPD,” Hizzoner contended. “The leadership of the NYPD would not tolerate people bringing their politics into their work.”
“We put on this uniform -- we are apolitical,” said Monahan. “We have no standing one way or another. Our role is to keep people safe.”
The NYPD is keeping an eye out for cyber attacks and watching for such strikes in other states, according to Deputy Commissioner John Miller, head of intelligence and counterterrorism.
“We factor all of that into the intelligence picture -- not in a passive way, but in a very active way, down to IP addresses, suspicious activity and so on,” he said, noting that police are working with the FBI.
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