Tight security for Thanksgiving parade amid shootings
NEW YORK: New York is planning tight security around the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in the wake of mass shootings elsewhere in the United States, police said, while stressing that there is no known, credible threat to the famed event itself.
The holiday tradition, which draws throngs of participants and spectators, this year comes two days after six people were killed in a shooting at a Walmart in Virginia, and four days after another shooting killed five people at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs.
Also over the weekend, a man who allegedly threatened to attack a synagogue was arrested at New York’s Penn Station with a knife, a ski mask, a swastika arm patch and an associate, authorities said.
In light of those events, police “will deploy additional resources to ensure the festivities across the city are safe for all,” New York Police Department counterterrorism Chief Martine Materasso said.
She said authorities had no indication of “any active, credible or specific threat” to the event.
By now, the security measures are almost as familiar as the parade itself. They include heavy weapons teams, explosives detection dogs, a bomb squad, radiological and chemical sensors, drone detection, sand trucks and blocker vehicles and extra cameras on the route.
Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette promised the parade would be “bigger and better this year than ever before” – so much so that it’s starting at 8.45am instead of 9am to accommodate all the balloons, floats, marching bands, singers, cheerleaders, clowns, Broadway casts, Radio City Rockettes and, of course, Santa Claus.
New balloons this year include the animated sensation Bluey, Stuart the one-eyed Minion from Despicable Me2 , and new green dinosaur and Diary of a Wimpy Kid balloons.