NYPD on alert after spate of anti-police threats in wake of officers' shooting
Six people have been arrested for making threats against officers, as police force warns officers to act with increased vigilance while on- and off-duty
Amanda Holpuch in New York
The Guardian, Friday 26 December 2014 20.23 GMT
NYPD shooting Members of the New Rochelle police department place a wreath at a makeshift memorial near the site where two NYPD officers were killed. Photograph: John Minchillo/AP
The New York Police Department has ramped up security at several precincts and seven people have been arrested for making threats against police officers in the days following the fatal shooting of two officers last weekend.
The NYPD has warned officers to act with increased vigilance while on- and off-duty and to maintain heightened awareness of their surroundings.
Police officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were shot and killed in Brooklyn while sitting in their patrol car on Saturday. The gunman, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, had made anti-police statements on Instagram before the shooting.
This week, law enforcement officers were stationed outside the 79th police precinct station-house, the closest station-house to where the shooting occurred. The officers were wearing helmets and bulletproof vests while standing in front of the purple and black bunting hanging above the precinct doors in honor of the fallen officers. At night, floodlights were cast in the usually darkened precinct parking lot.
Nine blocks up the road, mountains of flower arrangements and bouquets marked the spot where Liu and Ramos were shot. Brinsley fled from the scene immediately after the shooting and then fatally shot himself on a nearby subway platform.
NYPD officers look at a makeshift memorial for two officers who were fatally shot, in the Brooklyn borough of New York, 25 December 2014. Photograph: Carlo Allegri/Reuters
The makeshift memorial was busy through Christmas night and bus service has been rerouted around the block with FDNY vehicles overseeing the dozens of candles lit at the vigil.
Less than a week after the shooting, the NYPD said it was conducting about 40 threat investigations in response to hundreds of reports about online postings. In a Christmas Eve message to officers, NYPD commissioner Bill Bratton advised police to “maintain heightened awareness”.
On Wednesday afternoon, police arrested 38-year-old Elvin Payamps after a man told police that he had overheard someone at a bank speaking on his cell phone about killing officers and owning a firearm.
Payamps had left the scene by the time police arrived, but the area was canvassed and he was apprehended.
At his home, police allegedly found two firearms, two bulletproof vests, brass knuckles and a holster. Police charged him with three criminal weapon possession charges and unlawful possession of marijuana.
Also on Wednesday, 26-year-old Jose Maldonado was arrested in Brooklyn on charges of making a terroristic threat. He told police that he had made the comments because he was drunk, according to the New York Daily News.
NYPD has instituted street closures for the viewing for officer Ramos on Friday and his funeral on Saturday. The service is occurring at Christ Tabernacle Church, down the road from the shooting.
Mayor Bill de Blasio released a Christmas message from his family on Wednesday calling the upcoming holiday season “a time for renewal”.
“Recent events have brought great pain to our city, but the beauty and the strength of New York is that we don’t let moments like these divide us,” de Blasio said. “As we have done together as a city so many times before, we will take this moment as an opportunity not just to heal, but also to grow back stronger and more united than we’ve ever been.”
Since the shootings, De Blasio has been heavily criticised from some quarters for his attitude towards the police. Pat Lynch, the president of the city’s main police union, put blame for the officers’ deaths on “the steps of City Hall” and some officers turned their backs on De Blasio when he arrived at the hospital to which Liu and Ramos had been taken. This battle continued in the skies of New York City on Friday, as an anonymous person paid for a an aerial sign that read: “de Blasio, our backs have turned to you.”
