The New York Police Department is prepared to protect New Year's Eve revelers against terror attacks at Times Square with multiple checkpoints, long guns, and bomb-sniffing dogs,
NBC News reports.
About 6,000 officers, including a recently launched 500-member Critical Response Command, will be protecting the area, according to the NYPD and FBI.
"We are very very confident that New Year's Eve in New York City will be the safest place in the world to be," Chief James Waters, head of the NYPD's counterterrorism operations, said during a Tuesday news conference.
Crowds will enter from 14 different points where uniformed officers will inspect them and their bags with magnetometers and hand wands. Chemical and radiation detectors will be on hand, too, as will a long gun team "in case anyone tries to breach the entry point."
Attendees will be screened again as they arrive at one of the 65 spectator pens in Times Square and K-9 officers, heavy weapons teams, and emergency services officers will be nearby, ready to respond "within seconds," Waters said.
Almost 1,000 cameras also will be used to monitor the situation.
Commissioner Bill Bratton said overtime officers will be covering the rest of the city, but added, "the ability to protect everything all the time is not possible anywhere."
Still, Bratton said, his department is not aware of any credible terrorist threat against the city.
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