Pro-Palestinian protesters will attempt to disrupt the annual New Year’s Eve Ball Drop event in Times Square, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said in a Tuesday news conference.
“We’re sure there’s gonna be some type of attempt this year…Everyone looks for events like this if they want to do bad things, and the police department is on top of it,” the mayor said at a Tuesday news conference.
While the NYPD said there are no credible threats to the city for New Year’s Eve at this time, Adams said it is a priority for the city to avoid any chaos.
The mayor said there have been nearly 500 protests in New York City since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7th.
The annual Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting on November 30th was disrupted by over 1,000 pro-Palestinian agitators, while the Thanksgiving Day Parade saw protesters glue their hands to the middle of Sixth Avenue and cover themselves in fake blood.
New Year’s Eve Ball Drop
An incident during last year’s New Year’s Eve event saw a teenager linked to Islamist extremism attack three policemen with a machete on New Year’s Eve near Times Square.
“He knew what he was doing. He knew why he was doing it and he thought he would die in the attack…He did yell out ‘Allah Akbar,'” Thomas Galati, the department’s chief of intelligence and counterterrorism, told ABC News.
The NYPD is set to employ new technology and work in tandem with federal officers and private contractors as they seek to keep the Ball Drop event, which sees nearly one million people descend onto Times Square, under control.
The areas in and around Times Square will be cordoned off by noon on December 31st, meaning anyone trying to get into the area will have to go through layers of police checkpoints and security screenings.
“The variety of tools, whether robots, drones, bomb-sniffing dogs — all of those things are in play,” former deputy commissioner Richard Esposito told CBS New York.
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