Officials detail high security measures for United Nations General Assembly, Jewish High Holidays
NEW YORK CITY (WABC) -- Officials held a security briefing on Thursday to discuss how both local and federal enforcement will work together to ensure safety ahead of the United Nations General Assembly.
It's the largest gathering of world leaders on the planet and when more than 150 heads of state and their entourages descend on the United Nations next week, the NYPD says it'll be ready.
This year, the NYPD is on particularly high alert, with the Jewish holidays coinciding with Israel's increased ground war in Gaza, the annual United Nations General Assembly, and as tensions rise in the U.S. following the murder of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk.
City leaders and their federal partners announced a multilayered security plan for the 80th meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.
"This is one of the largest and most complex security operations anywhere," Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.
It will be an elaborate, annual choreography of motorcades and street closures, but this year it's amid an elevated threat environment.
"The Secret Service is mindful of the 8 million New Yorkers whose lives do not simply stop because the UNGA is in session. We appreciate your patience over the next week," Secret Service agent Matt McCool said.
The first dignitaries are set to arrive on Sunday.
President Trump will be among them as well as Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and dozens of their high-profile politicians with their own logistics and security teams.
To protect it all will be the thousands of police with dogs and long guns, as well as in the water and in the air.
"We are always thinking how we can make our apparatus bigger and better," NYPD Chief of Department John Chell said. "We will probably be using more drones than we ever have to get that overview perched of everything that's around us."
Last year, the Eyewitness News team had an inside look at the technology that can identify unauthorized drones and even disable them and take them out of the sky.
It's a capability wielded only by specifically trained federal agents.
The NYPD is trying to pass a law in Congress that would allow local cops the same authority at a time when attack drones are a rising concern.
"A drone big or small, even with a modest payload, in an area with the urban density of New York City, you have a gigantic problem on your hands," officials said.
The urgent rethink of security followed the killing of Kirk in Utah, the latest in a rash of political violence that police said makes politicians, public figures and other dignitaries targets.
"These events tend to be fueling each other," according to NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Counterterrorism and Intelligence Rebecca Weiner. She said the current threat picture requires preparing for "everything, everywhere, all at once."
ABC News saw some those preparations from a police boat patrolling the East River by UN headquarters and from a warehouse in Brooklyn where the U.S. Secret Service is staging hundreds of armored SUVs that will be used in motorcades to ferry world leaders around the city.
Across the city, houses of worship will start to see a heavily armed police presence, with Rosh Hashanah set to begin at sundown on Sept. 22 and last until Sept. 25, which will be followed by Yom Kippur in October.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch and the head of NYPD's Intelligence Bureau briefed members of the Jewish community on Wednesday about plans to keep them safe.
"Each attack makes the next more likely. That's how contagion work," Tisch said. "Since Oct. 7, more than 25 attacks or disrupted plots have targeted Israeli and U.S. diplomatic sites. In December, a Virginia man was arrested for planning an attack against the Israeli Consulate in Midtown. Last May, a man was arrested at JFK for allegedly trying to firebomb the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv."
ABC News contributed to this report.
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