Extremist Threats Leave NYPD On High Alert

ISIS has re-released its propaganda video that urges the murder of civilians, police officers, intelligence officers and soldiers, putting the largest police force in the United States on high alert.  This latest development has got federal law enforcement and the NYPD taking notice, especially given the circumstances of the Islamist rampage in Paris that took place last week.

Abu Mahammad Al-Adnani, an ISIS spokesman, said targets in the U.S. Australia, Canada and France including the police, intelligence and security members along with treacherous agents need to be hit.

Originally released in September, law enforcement are concerned that sleeper cells in the U.S. and Europe could heed such Islamic radical calls. In the last few weeks, criminals with potential ties to terrorists have been carrying out high-profile attacks in France, New York, Australia and Canada.

According to an NYPD internal memo, police officers are warned to be alert while on patrol, consider tactics all the time.

According to Stephen Davis, an NYPD deputy commissioner, the agency learned of the video’s resurgence that posted the threat. Davis said based on the latest posting that calls on the killing of innocent people in certain countries, the NYPD felt it best to send word to its officers to remain vigilant while they were on patrol.  The department’s union gave specific instructions to its members in regards to their safety.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the FBI issues a bulletin similar to the NYPD to law enforcement throughout the nation. The FBI statement said the bulletin was being sent as part of a constant discussion with the intelligence and law enforcement community to assess the present threat and share data that are related to these threat indicators and potential security measures. The FBI statement urges the public to stay vigilant and to report any type of apprehensive activity to police.

Officials have said there is not credible documentation that suggests a U.S. attack is imminent, but police and the public need to be vigilant.

The latest warnings come following the State Department’s “Worldwide Caution” announced on Friday, which said there is a constant threat of violence and terrorist attacks on the U.S. and its citizens.

NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Counterterrorism John Miller said he doesn’t feel there is a greater or newer threat but said ISIS and other terrorist groups are keen to exploit the France attack, where two brothers thought to have been Al-Qaeda-trained killed 12 people during an attack on a French satirical magazine that have angered the Muslim extremists for their cartoon publishing of the Prophet Muhammad.

The Wednesday attack at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris and the manhunt that ensued after prompted an ISIS follower, thought to be responsible for the murder of a Paris policewoman Thursday, to take many hostages at a Paris kosher supermarket, even after police were closing in on the brothers who were found at a printing plant 25 miles away from the city. All three terrorists were killed, but four innocent civilian lives were also lost in the supermarket incident.

On Dec. 20, two New York City police officers were killed by a man thought to be a terrorist sympathizer, even though the actions could have been in retaliation for the shootings and deaths of two black men – one in Ferguson, Mo. and the other in Staten Island. A radicalized Islamist sympathizer came at four NYPD officers in October with a hatchet, which critically injured one of the officers.

Last month, an ISIS sympathizer and terrorist in Sydney took several hostages in a coffee shop, keeping police at bay for more than 12 hours. That siege left a mother of three and a manager dead before police killed the terrorist. Outside the Ottawa capital, a suspected lone wolf terrorist is responsible for the killing of a Royal Canadian Mounted Police guard in October. He stormed the building, which authorities believed was the result of his Islamic radicalism.