Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good afternoon, everyone. With the evening rush hour about to begin, I have a simple message for all New Yorkers: There is no immediate credible threat to our subway system. I say that with confidence. People should go about their business as they normally would. We have the finest police force in the world focused on this issue every day. They are ever-vigilant regarding any security threats to our city. As everyone knows, we pride ourselves on close cooperation with our federal partners. Commissioner Bratton and I met earlier with the assistant director of the FBI, George Venizelos, who’s here with us today. We are in close contact, close coordination with the federal government in all we’re doing. And the NYPD Intelligence Bureau, which everyone knows has outposts all over the world and is the leader in terms of this work in local law enforcement all over the country, has assessed the statements of the Iraqi prime minister, and at this point finds no specific, credible threat.

This city operates on a basis of heightened vigilance and security on a regular basis. That was true going into the U.N. General Assembly week, that’s true every week. We’re going to always be mindful of any new information that we receive – we’re going to act accordingly. But New Yorkers can rest assured, a high state of vigilance and readiness is normal for all of us in New York City government, it’s normal for the NYPD – it will continue. The commissioner will talk about some of the specific actions being taken to ensure that our resources are in place and that our vigilance is intense, but everyone should know, the most important fact right now is, we are convinced that New Yorkers are safe. We are convinced people should go about their normal routine. Terrorists want us to live in fear. We refuse to live in fear. And we, at the same time, will be watching 24/7 for any indication of a problem that we have to address in a specific manner.

I’ve said many times – I want to say it again – that the people of this city have an important role to play. The phrase “When you see something, say something” is not an empty phrase – it’s real. Law enforcement depends on everyday citizens to alert us to any potential threat. So while the NYPD and the FBI and the other agencies are out there doing their job with great professionalism and vigilance, it’s important that everyday New Yorkers act as their partners, and if you see something, please say something immediately.

With that, I would like to pass the microphone to Commissioner Bratton and commend him, commend the NYPD, commend the almost thousand officers that we devote to counterterror operations for their extraordinary work and for all they do to keep us safe every day. Commissioner Bratton –

Commissioner Bill Bratton, NYPD: Thank you, sir. I’ll echo the mayor’s comment that at the moment that we do not have any confirmed threat directed against New York City or its subway system. A lot of the current concern is based, apparently, on a press report this morning of comments made by the prime minister for the country of Iraq. We were first notified of that AP report while we were attending a funeral for Police Officer Michael Williams, who was killed in a traffic accident this past Sunday. But immediately based on that initial AP report, we were already on a very high state of alert here in New York City due to the United Nations General Assembly, due to the fact that for the last several days the President of the United States and many other world leaders were here and many are still here in New York City. In addition to what we already had in place, that we also put contingency plans that are planned far in advance to significantly increase our activities, particularly in the subways, where the initial information seemed to focus on the subways. Subsequent reporting or clarification of the prime minister’s remarks clarified that it was not specifically focused on subways, but we err always on the side of caution and preparation.

So we have put throughout the five boroughs of the city, 450 subway stations, significantly increased resources. Every precinct commander was notified immediately and began having their sector cars check precinct stations throughout their tours of duty throughout the city. Additionally, we brought in all of our emergency service officers that allowed us to increase our normal compliment of Hercules Teams that you see in the city so that we now have Hercules Teams – those are the heavily armed officers with the Kevlar, helmets, and the dogs – in all five boroughs. Additionally, Transit has a number of their operations where they will be checking bags at several stations to detect if any explosives might be coming into the system. We have also notified our 13,000 security partners, the directors of security for most of the major companies through New York, about the initial information and what we are doing in response to it. Additionally, our Lower Manhattan security initiative, the 7,000 cameras that we operate – that has also been enhanced with additional observation. We have held over a number of our officers from the day tour going into the evening hours, until we get a complete clarification that the prime minister’s remarks, in fact, did not have any credible information, that U.S. and New York City intelligence services were not aware of.

At this time, that – the people of this city should feel very comfortable and secure moving through the subways. We were on a train loaded with a lot of Yankees fans heading up to Yankee Stadium to celebrate the retirement of Number 2. And we’ll hope the weather cooperates so they get that game in tonight. We will have additional security, certainly, in and around the stadium and on the subways going into the stadium. But at this time – and I want to thank my colleague from the FBI, the director of the FBI office – he was attending the funeral with the mayor and I and we were immediately able to come together and ensure that our counterparts back here in the city were moving forward in a very coordinated, collaborative effort. So, again, Mr. Mayor, I thank you for putting this together very quickly to just allow the opportunity to reassure the public that everything is fine here in the city.

Unknown 1: On-topic questions only, please.

Question: [inaudible] MTA reports [inaudible] for its capital plan. That was partially responding [inaudible] terror. [inaudible] wondering if you have any comments on that in light of today’s news?

Mayor: Well, again, let’s be clear – I think Commissioner Bratton said it very powerfully – we’ve received information that has not been verified by United States intelligence agencies or by the NYPD, so it’s not news until we find something specific. But we’re certainly going to look at what the MTA needs to be secure. There’s been close security cooperation between NYPD and MTA and we will work together to determine what kind of resources are needed for the future. But I haven’t seen the specifics to that plan, but it’s the kind of thing we work on all the time.

Question: [inaudible]

Mayor: Again, I’ll – I’m going to defer to the commissioner to explain what some of the specific measures we’ve put in place are. And, in fact, I want to say to the people of this city, you may be asked to open your bag, you may find that there are some spot-check points set up – don’t be alarmed, it’s just part of ensuring that we’re doing all we can as we gain more information. You may see more police presence in certain sites – that’s all part of the pattern to responding even to the possibility of some heightened activity. But until we have something we believe is credible, we’re not going to use all the measures we might use if we were to have a credible threat.

Commissioner Bratton: Again, to give a few more specifics about what we’re doing – you’re all well aware of the CRB units, our critical response vehicles, that we have here in the Manhattan area, that a number of them were immediately deployed to various transit hubs here in Manhattan. We also, throughout the city, had a very high presence because of the Jewish high holidays around the various synagogues and other areas and temples, and that presence will continue. We are holding over the day tour of the officers – in excess of a hundred-some-odd officers – who are assigned to those critical response vehicles to ensure that we have additional coverage until we total clarification of the prime minister’s comments. We also have our transit anti-terrorism units, going to be conducting at certain locations the bag inspections, where they do the wipe to determine if there’s any explosives that might be detected. Additionally, we have deployed a significant number of vapor-detection dogs throughout the system. These are dogs that are capable of picking up explosive-related scents. So we have brought all of those dogs in and you may see additional dogs as you move through the subway system. We have also effectively put out a number of surveillance teams that transit has at any given time. We are effectively enhancing what we already had for this week because of the high holidays, U.N. visit, president’s visit, and, fortunately, New York being the size that it is, the size of the department we have, and the capabilities we have, the ramp up went very very smoothly, and within an hour to two hours of the message first coming across the news wires, we were up and running.

Question: [inaudible]

Commissioner Bratton: I didn’t hear that question – [inaudible]

Mayor: She’s saying isn’t it possibly a ploy – that terrorists would say subways but actually direct their efforts on airports or other targets?

Commissioner Bratton: I would not even speculate on that. We, again, are basing all of what we’re talking about on the statement of the prime minister from Iraq, and there seems to have been some misinterpretation of even his remarks as it began to filter through the media. So I can’t really speak to your question at all.

Question: Commissioner, there were some reports about a month ago that the subways might be targeted. Those concerns were later debunked. Could this be the same information being re-circulated somehow?

Commissioner Bratton: That – we always, in New York, because of the target that we will and always will remain, operate at an increased heightened sense of alert, so that we tend to pay very careful attention to whatever pieces of intelligence that might come in relative to New York or the region – and it goes up and down – that’s the nature of the intelligence flow. But we maintain a constant level of alertness that can be very quickly enhanced, as we did today, with hundreds of additional officers very quickly deployed to wherever the potential threat may be.

Question: [inaudible]

Mayor: How long do we expect the enhanced security [inaudible]?

Commissioner Bratton: We will keep this going forward until we, in fact, have a clarification, working with our intelligence partners in the U.S. government, as to whether there is any validity to the concerns that were raised by the prime minister. We have that capability and, in any event, we were raised up for this week because of the high holidays as well as the U.N.. So you can expect to see a lot of police around the city for the next several days in any event.

Mayor: Go ahead. Right here.

Question: Will security also be increased in the Staten Island ferry and in the bus system as well?

Mayor: Let me just start by saying again – I want to make sure everyone’s getting this message clearly – we have received information, which in the eyes of the United States government and the NYPD, is not verified. So what we’re doing is taking precautions until we have more information. Again, you will see a heightened security presence in certain locations, but until we have something more specific, we’re not in a position to devote additional resources. It’s not smart to do that until we have something credible. So you may well see activity around buses or ferries as conditions warrant, but for now, based on the very vague information that’s come out of the Iraqi prime minister, there is some focus on subways, but there’s not going to be a final plan, if you will, until we have credible information.

Question: [inaudible] trying to understand – last week there was a discussion about chat-rooms where [inaudible] ISIS members were claiming that they wanted locals to attack cities including New York City, Las Vegas, and Texas. And this week, today, it’s actually human intelligence, but just wondering, like, what it takes to understand it – what’s a credible threat? And also, what you guys have done about last week’s [inaudible]?

Commissioner Bratton: Credible threats are where we are able to use verifiable intelligence, oftentimes human intelligence or technology, that might give us information that is verifiable. So, in terms of what’s going on today, as we’ve indicated, it is all based on that comment from the prime minister. And we very quickly sought to determine, within the intelligence community, was there anything that he said that related to anything we were looking at – and as of this afternoon, there is not. But we will continue to work with the Iraqis to see what, effectively, was their intelligence, and if, in fact, we can get that.

Unknown 1: Two more, two more – anybody? Going once, going twice – all right. Thank you, guys.

Mayor: Thanks, everyone.

Commissioner Bratton: Thank you very much.

(YWN Desk – NYC)