WORRY EX TOP COP
Bratton thinks police should scan buildings, sky for threats
Boston should follow New York City’s lead and deploy officers in high places to scan buildings and even the skies for threats around high-profile, openair events, the former top cop of both cities said.
William Bratton — the former police commissioner in both Boston and New York City, as well as chief of the Los Angeles Police Department — warned last night that shooters are not the only threat outdoor activities face, saying he’s “scared” by the possibility of drone attacks in public places.
Bratton discussed the Las Vegas massacre in a talk on 21st century policing at Curry College last night.
Bratton said smaller departments than the NYPD and LAPD will have to take a page from those agencies’ approaches to patrolling large public events.
“New York and L.A. for years have had counterstrike teams. New York always has teams up in higher buildings for presidential visits, for Times Square on New Year’s Eve,” said Bratton, who also served as New York’s police commissioner in the mid- 1990s and again from 2014 to 2016.
“A lot of departments around the country have not had that type of focus,” Bratton said. “Coming out of this, they have to add that to the repertoire of things they have to plan for and be aware of.”
And those officers need the right gear to deal with a heavily armed attacker such as Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock, Bratton said. Initial police responders in Las Vegas had light bulletproof vests, but Paddock was firing rifle rounds that would have easily penetrated that armor, Bratton said, which meant the responders had to hold off on taking him down.
“They had to wait until the SWAT team got there with their vests and helmets and explosives to go through the door. A lot of lessons learned are coming from this one,” Bratton said, adding that he’s pushed for all NYPD police cars to contain special ballistic helmets and vests that can withstand rifle fire.
But while police can prepare for heavy fire, Bratton said the possibility of attack by drones mounted with weapons or explosives, controlled by people far away from a crime scene, are a threat that law enforcement is still figuring out how to deal with.
“Drones is one issue that frankly scares me and worries me quite a bit,” Bratton said. “That technology, the potential hazards of it are unknown; the weaponization of drones is a concern.”
Ultimately, Bratton said, people at large gatherings will have to be aware of the potential for violence. But he said they should not let that stop them from going out.
“At Fenway, at any public event, there’s going to be an awareness of this going forward. It doesn’t stop it. It makes you aware of it. That’s part of the world we live in. We have terrorist incidents; we have criminal incidents,” Bratton said. “You have to look at the positive and be aware of the negative, and learn from the negative to apply to the positive.”