The NYPD now has anti-aircraft capability.
New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly tells "60 Minutes" that the NYPD has "some means to take down a plane" in what he termed an "extreme situation," during an interview tonight on CBS, according to a transcript of the exchange.
Under fire by some for police counterterrorism tactics highlighted in a series of Associated Press articles, Kelly doesn't elaborate to interviewer Scott Pelley exactly how cops could take down a plane, but when asked point-blank whether the police have the equipment and training to pull off such a feat, Kelly responds, "Yes"
Do you mean to say that the NYPD has the means to take down an aircraft?" Pelley asks.
To which Kelly responds: "Yes, I prefer not to get into the details but obviously this would be in a very extreme situation."
You have the equipment and the training," Pelley follows up.
Yes," Kelly answers.
In the interview, Kelly also says NYPD officers are in far-flung locales like Abu Dhabi and Jordan.
They’re there to act as trip wires or listening posts," Kelly said. "Is there anything going on there that (as I say) can help us better protect the city."
Kelly says thousands of heavily-armed cops, a growing network of cameras downtown -- the number will swell from 2,000 to 3,000 in Lower Manhattan -- and radiation detectors ringing the city are necessary because New York remains in the crosshairs.
We’re the number one target in this country. That’s the consensus of the intelligence community. We’re the communications capital. We’re the financial capital. We’re a city that’s been attacked twice successfully. We’ve have 13 terrorist plots against the city since September 11th. No other city has had that," Kelly says.
In one plot detected by police counter-terrorism unit, would-be bombers used a monster movie reference to hatch their plan, Kelly says.
We had received information in some communications that the bridge in the Godzilla movie was being observed as a possible target, "Kelly says, in reference to the scene in the 1998 movie of the same name, where the creature becomes entangled in suspension wires on the Brooklyn Bridge. "That’s how they characterized the bridge."
It wasn't the only movie reference during tonight's sit-down. Kelly borrowed a line from "Casablanca," where Humphrey Bogart warns the Nazis that some sections of the Big Apple would be too rough to take on in his closing message to modern-day evildoers.
If you see the movie 'Casablanca,' and you have Humphrey Bogart talking to Colonel Strasser. And he says that he would advise the Nazis to think twice about invading certain parts of New York City," Kelly says.
"Well that’s our message. “Stay away.”
NYPD Chief: Police Could Take Down Plane If Needed : MyFoxNY.com
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