NEWYORK: New York city Mayor Eric Adams said that NYC will utilize not only the cameras that are assigned to the New York City Police Department but our partners through the surveillance throughout the entire city during Jewish community high holidays season.
Speaking at NYPD security briefing and replying to questions, Mayor Adams said that as the Jewish community prepares and celebrates the high holiday season we prayed for peace in the entire region.
“We’re seeing so much violence unfolding in the region, and as a city, we are going to continue to call and pray for peace, and we will always stand in solidarity with all faith communities of New York City,” he said.
“We know that there are significant protest plans for October 7th, and while we acknowledge that the city will respect and protect people’s right to peacefully protest, there will be a zero tolerance for those who violate the law, impede traffic, and damage property while doing so. We will not accept for people to be threatened at their places of work, their places of worship, or any place here in New York City. As the mayor with the largest community of various faiths in the United States, it is my sacred duty to protect all New Yorkers, and that is what we are going to do,” he said.
He said that as person of faith, he will always stand with those who seek to live in worship in freedom and security, and he want every New Yorker to know that your city will protect you.
“No matter what is going on on the globe, here in New York City, you will be safe. And so as families come together and neighbors prepare for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, our city is going to make sure they can do so safely. And I urge New Yorkers to celebrate and congregate throughout the weekend free of fear,” he said.
Mayor Adams said that NYPD is working with our law enforcement partners at the city, state, and federal levels to ensure that every New Yorker, every neighborhood, every community, and house of faith is safe.
“There will be many protections that you will see, and there will be many that you will not see. New Yorkers can expect an increased police presence at key locations and houses of worship, and you will notice more of them in uniform. We will have an omni-presence and a real visible presence of uniformed personnel. We’re deploying additional cameras to sensitive locations that will complement the 80,000 cameras in the NYPD domain awareness system, and we will ensure a swift response to any act of violence and any call for service,” he said.
“We will continue to protect New Yorkers, and I really want to thank the entire Police Department and all of our partners that are here from various organizations and entities that are standing in solidarity with us as we keep this city safe during this holiday season,” he added.
Mayor Adams said that he also want to point out that what we are witnessing is an increase in hate.
Our Muslim brothers and sisters are also seeing an increase in Islamophobia. We’re seeing an increase in these other areas. And so while we’re going to ensure the safety of our Jewish constituents here in the city, we have an obligation to ensure the safety of all New Yorkers.
Interim police commissioner Thomas Donlon said that we are here to send a clear message that New Yorkers should be certain that, as he is, helping the community with this high holiday season, we intend to make certain that everyone is safe and secure, because the men and the women of the New York City Police Department will be out there 24-7 doing what they do best.
Deputy commissioner Rebecca Weiner of intelligence and counterterrorism police department said that it’s been an incredibly challenging year around the world since last year’s High Holy Days, and particularly since Hamas’s attack on October 7th and the ensuing conflict which is engulfing the Middle East at the moment.
“Tensions, as we know, have been high and rising, and polarization has run quite deep. October 7th and its aftermath have had a profound effect on the terrorism ecosystem, perhaps a generational one, galvanizing foreign terrorist organizations and their supporters across the ideological spectrum and around the world,” Weiner said.
“So we remain on high alert. We remain responsive to the threat environment. But we do this work very well, and we do it all the time. And this should not be a time of fear, but it is, as always, we say this, a time for vigilance. We’re going to be vigilant, and we ask that you do the same.”
To a question about anti semitic hate crimes, chief Joseph Kenny Detectives police department said that we’ve had 493 incidents that were deemed to be a hate crime in 2024 and this compares to 381 incidents that took place last year. “That’s a total increase of 112 crimes. That’s an increase of 29 percent. Only 70 of those crimes have deemed to be seven majors, meaning that they were felonies that gets tracked through our CompStat process. That only accounts for 14 percent of all hate crimes being a seven major crime,” Kenny said.
“There have only been 22 major crimes against the Jewish community this year. In response to this, we’ve increased our staffing in the NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force, and that team has investigated and made arrests on over 300 incidents so far this year. We’re going to continue to work with our federal partners and with our district attorney’s office, and obviously our goal is to bring justice to all these victims.”
