Ground Zero will be the obvious center of focus for the New York Police Department in the lead up to Sunday’s 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

But Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the former World Trade Center site isn’t the department’s exclusive security concern over the coming days.

“We don’t presume that Ground Zero alone is a potential target,” Mr. Kelly told an audience at a conference Wednesday about lessons learned since 9/11, held in the Grand Hyatt hotel in Midtown Manhattan. “That would be short-sighted.”

Mr. Kelly said that during Sunday’s ceremony, which will have President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush in attendance, “we’ll have thousands of extra officers on duty” around Ground Zero.

Those officers will include snipers, bomb technicians, scuba divers, helicopter pilots, radiation detectors and a host of other specialized teams, Mr. Kelly said.

The commissioner said they are also creating a “large frozen zone around the site” from West Street to Broadway, and Murray Street to Albany Street.

He said the officers stationed in the NYPD’s Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center will be monitoring license-plate readers and the hundreds of security cameras that are trained on the World Trade Center site.

But the commissioner said they also will be positioning “quick reaction forces” outside Lower Manhattan “to respond to any emergency” that may occur away from Ground Zero.

Officers who have been trained to use high-powered rifles, Bomb Squad detectives and hostage negotiators will be attached to these quick reaction groups, as will Highway Patrol officers to ensure these teams can get around the city as quickly as possible, Mr. Kelly said.

Mr. Kelly didn’t provide specific numbers but said there will be a “major deployment of officers” at Grand Central, Penn Station and Herald Square Station starting Friday.

Authorities know of no specific plots against the city, Mr. Kelly said, but documents found in Osama bin Laden’s compound after his death in May “speak to al Qaeda’s aspirations to carry out an attack” on the 10th anniversary.

“For that reason we need to take precautions as if an actual plot is under way,” he said.

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(Source: WSJ)