NY tightens security for New Year’s Eve

Garbage trucks, thousands of police to be deployed

NEW YORK, Dec 30, (Agencies): New York City will deploy sand-filled trucks and thousands of police officers as part of a beefed-up plan to protect revelers at this year’s New Year’s Eve celebrations in Times Square, mindful of two deadly truck attacks in Europe this year.

As many as 2 million people are expected to gather on Saturday to welcome the new year and authorities said on Thursday they were aware of no credible threat to the annual festivities at the famed Manhattan crossroads.

Even so, officials have redoubled efforts to prevent attacks like those in Germany and France this year in which suspected Islamic militants intentionally drove trucks into holiday crowds, killing dozens of civilians.

“People will be safe,” New York City Police Commissioner James O’Neill said at a news conference, aiming to allay any security concerns about the Times Square celebration, where a giant crystal ball will descend from a tower to mark the start of 2017.

“We’re going to have one of the most well-policed, best-protected events in one of the safest venues in the entire world given all the assets that we deploy here,” he said.

Attacks

New York Police Chief of Department Carlos Gomez said the truck attacks in Europe were taken into consideration in planning New York’s security plan.

A truck attack at a holiday market in Berlin days before Christmas killed a dozen people and injured 56, while

victim Thomas Jay Sebring, said a Los Angeles County prosecutor who attended the hearing told him that the parole officials want to research whether Krenwinkel was a victim of intimate partner battery. a similar incident in Nice, France, on Bastille Day this summer killed 86 people and injured more than 400.

Revelers in New York City on Saturday will find 65 large sanitation trucks filled with sand placed in strategic positions to block potential truck attacks, as well as about 100 other smaller “blocker” vehicles, officials said.

More than 80 sand trucks were used to protect the Macy’s 90th Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York after Islamic State militants abroad encouraged their followers to target the event, which drew an estimated 3.5 million people to the streets of the largest US city.

For New Year’s Eve, the nearly 2 million visitors expected to gather in the hours before midnight may notice heavily armed police teams, bombsniffing dogs, helicopters and bag searches in subways. Coast Guard and police vessels will patrol the waterways surrounding Manhattan.

Officers also will make sweeps of area hotels, theaters and parking garages and monitor checkpoints where they scan for radiation and weapons, police said.

Other less visible layers of security include plainclothes officers, hundreds of security cameras, the removal of trash cans, sealed manhole covers and rooftop observation points.

All told, the New York Police Department has assigned nearly 7,000 police to Times Square and throughout the rest of the city on Saturday, officials said.

Umbrellas, large bags and alcohol are banned and portions of 57th and

“For this investigation to be initiated at this point is mindboggling,” said DiMaria, who attended the hearing but left before a decision was postponed. “I don’t understand where we go from a murder, the killing of eight people (including

Police investigate a fatal shooting which took place next to this silver/blue sedan in a parking lot near the University of Utah in Salt Lake City on Dec 29. University of Utah police say a man and woman have been fatally shot in a parking lot and authorities suspect it’s a case of murder-suicide. The reports say the violence occurred outside of a laboratory at the University of Utah Research Park. (AP)

59th streets will be closed to traffic.

Massive 20-ton sanitation trucks, weighted with an extra 15 tons of sand, will surround the iconic New Year’s Eve celebration in Times Square, officials said Thursday.

The placement of the 65 trucks, along with 100 patrol cars, at intersections surrounding Times Square is a new element to an already heavily policed event that will include 7,000 officers, specially armed counterterrorism units and bomb-sniffing dogs.

NEW YORK:

Also:

New York police officers will be allowed to wear beards and turbans while in uniform in accordance with their religion, a measure long demanded by Sikh and Muslim officers.

Sikh policemen in New York who request to do so will now be able to wear standard-length turbans, provided they are blue. They had previously been limited to wearing small turbans that fit under regular police caps.

Sikh and Muslim policemen will also be allowed to grow beards up to half an inch (1.3 centimeters) long, instead of the one millimeter currently allowed.

“We’re making this change to make sure that we allow everybody in New York City that wants to apply and have the opportunity to work in the greatest police department in the nation, to make sure we give them that opportunity,” US media quoted Commissioner James O’Neill as saying in a speech to graduating recruits of the Police Academy late Wednesday.

Tate’s unborn child) to an intimate partner battery victim. It’s absurd .... It seems like the world is turned upside down. How do you kill eight people and now you’re the victim?”

Jean Guccione, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office, said prosecutors would not comment until the parole panel makes its recommendation after the investigation. (AP)

Kennedy grandson arrested:

Police say a member of the Kennedy family was arrested after a bar fight in the tony resort town of Aspen.

Police say 22-year-old John Conor Kennedy was charged with disorderly conduct in the Thursday morning scuffle. Kennedy is the oldest son of Robert Kennedy Jr, an environmental activist, and the grandson of Robert Kennedy.

Police say Kennedy and another man were fighting in the street and rolling around on the ground when officers tried to separate them.

Officers reported seeing Kennedy punch the man in the head four or five times.

Kennedy allegedly struggled against an officer who was trying to restrain him before they both fell into a snowbank.

It was unclear if Kennedy has an attorney who could comment on his behalf. A court appearance is set for Feb 22. (AP)