Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Holds Media Availability Following Orlando Nightclub Shooting

June 12, 2016

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Well, In the midst of a positive celebration behind us a very, very sad tragedy today in Orlando, Florida. Once again, the eyes of our nation, the eyes of the world turned to a city that has been the victim of terror. Our thoughts and our prayers are with all the families and with the people of Orlando. You can only imagine what they are going through right now – the pain they are feeling. And once again, we stand in solidarity as New York City knows so well what this feels like to be the victim of a terror attack.

Now, this attack another example of not just an attack on human beings, but an attack on our values; our values of tolerance and freedom and belief and respect for all faiths. It is something that we hold particularly dear here in New Yok City and it is under attack all over the world, but we will always a beacon of inclusion and tolerance and understanding.

What we have here, obviously, is the very early stages of the investigation. You will hear from Chief O’Neill in a moment. It’s an act of terror, there’s no question about that and it is an act of hate. We don’t know all the details, but we do know it was directed at an LGBT club and that was a club that was having a Latino Night. So, the investigation will look into all of the motivations, but from what we can see now both an act of terror and an act of hate.

For the people in New York City, I want you to know that at this point there are no credible threats directed against New York City. At the same time, we are on high alert. We have close coordination with all of our federal partners; with the Joint Terrorism Taskforce, the FBI, and all our partners. We are vigilant. We have deployed our Critical Response Command and our Strategic Response Group. So, you will see a lot of additional police presence on the streets of this City. You’ll see additional police presence in some of the heavy-trafficked areas of our city today. You’ll see police presence in front of some key LGBT community institutions – protecting the people of this city. And this is because a year ago we determined that we needed a large and sophisticated anti-terror force in this city. We now have over 500 men and women in or Critical Response Command, specially trained in the event [inaudible]. Their presence today will be reassuring, I know, to all my fellow New Yorkers.

There is no city in the world better prepared to stop terror, to stop hate crimes – you will see the evidence of that in the coming days. b\But for now I want to just offer my solidarity to the people of Orlando and to all of our brothers and sisters in the LGBT community in Orlando, in New York City, and all over the world who are feeling the pain of this attack. We are going to order the flags of the City to half-staff to honor those who were lost. We’ll be lighting City Hall in the pride colors and tomorrow night there will be a vigil outside the Stonewall Inn in the Village, which I will be attending, I know, with many, many New Yorkers in solidarity with all those who were lost. Now, I would like you to hear from Chief O’Neill.

NYPD Chief of Department, James O’Neill: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First of all, my thoughts and prayers – NYPD’s thoughts and prayers go out to all the victims of this tragedy. It is a horrific crime down in Orlando – happening all too often.

As far as the NYPD’s response, we’re working closely with the JTTF and our federal partners in the FBI to get exactly all the intel we need to deploy correctly up here – and if any leads come back to New York City to make sure they are investigated properly. There’s a couple of pictures of the subject wearing an NYPD t-shirt going around on social media – at this time, he has no – absolutely no connection to anything NYPD. I don’t know where he got the shirts, but they are easily available in a lot of places throughout the United States.

As you know, as we’ve talked about, we just had the active shooter a couple of weeks ago out in Kingsborough Community College. We’ve ramped up our active shooter training – SRG that was up over 600 police officers with long guns; CRC is over 350 supervisors [inaudible]. So, we’ve substantially increased our ability to respond to incidents. And with the graduating class on July 1st we will have 1,300 more cops on the street thanks to the Mayor and City Council. What we are going to do over the next couple of days or as long as [inaudible] is we’re going to increase uniform presence in night life throughout the City in crowded venues. We’re going to be working with the LGBT community, not just in Manhattan, but in the outer boroughs also to make sure we deploy properly to make people not only safe, but to feel safe throughout the City and that I what we do so well. Now, it is a time for all the people in the United States to come together and work together and make sure nothing like this ever happens again. Jimmy Waters is going to give you a little more specificity as to what we are going to do as far as deployment.
Jimmy?

NYPD Chief of Counterterrorism, James Waters: Its incidents like what occurred here this morning in Orlando, Florida that bring out the best in the NYPD; it’s why we have trained the way we have trained over the last two-and-a-half years and why we created the Critical Response Command and increased the capacity of the Strategic Response Group. You will see, as the Mayor and the Chief have already said, a heightened presence on the street of the CRC people. Now, they are out there every day, all three platoons, but you will see them with their long guns displayed at critical locations. We have selected locations in the downtown area like the Stonewall and the vicinity thereof to take a very firm, positive posture with the long guns out there. And we will continue to do that. We will be moving from place to pace and moving our resources around as the intelligence. As far as the intelligence and the cooperation of the federal government – I have been, you know, I oversee the JTTF. We have been talking with the FBI since early this morning as well as I personally spoke to Secretary Johnson -- the Secretary of Homeland Security – and exchanged information with him earlier today. So, we’re all in lockstep with our coordination and our intelligence gathering and our intelligence exchange.

Mayor: Okay, we welcome your questions.

Question: Can you tell us about any connections – we understand this suspect has connections to New York. He was born here – can you tell us anything about what you know about the suspect and his connection to the City?

Mayor: We have very limited evidence of any connection to this City.

Chief Waters: Right now, we’re going to let the Orlando police and the FBI down in Florida conduct their investigation. As it warrants, they will send us leads if they need us to check out anything. There are social media reports that he had family members and social security card etcetera, but at this point we’re going to let the investigation down there continue and then as needed we will assist those authorities.

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: I just want to start – we are in a constant state of vigilance. This is why we are increasing our police force in terms of the [inaudible] by 2,000 members; this is why we have a 500 member-plus Critical Response Command. We are always in a state of vigilance. Clearly, we want to know everything we can from this incident [inaudible] that’s where that close coordination with the [inaudible].

Chief O’Neill: Our biggest concern, of course, is soft targets. That’s why we’re deploying CRC, SRG, ESU, and the Hercules Teams throughout the City. It’s not just today, but over the last couple of years we have built up these resources tremendously. We’ve seen wat happened in Paris, Brussels, and that’s what we train to so that’s our biggest concern.

Question: Wit this coming so close to Pride Week what do you say to the tens of thousands of people [inaudible]?

Mayor: That they will be very well protected. We’re he most prepared city of any city in the country to prevent terrorism and have been doing it non-stop for 15 years. There have been 20 plots that were either directed at New York City or originated in New York City, all of which were foiled. And we have the strongest anti-terror capacity we’ve ever had in the history of this City. So, we will make sure they are safe.

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: [Inaudible]

Question: We’ve learned from the FBI that this man was on the FBI’s terror list [inaudible].

Chief Waters: I don’t really want to comment just yet. You know, that is an active investigation for the FBI to discuss.

Question: Pride Week, are there going to be additional security measures taken?

Mayor: Yes. We always have a very strong presence during Pride Week and particularly for the parade, which is one of the biggest most wonderful events in the City every year, but we will beef up that presence. And you will certainly see there’s lots of NYPD officers there and particularly the Critical Response Command with the trained anti-terror officers. They will be very much a presence.

Question: How did this guy onto the radar or any [inaudible]? Do you have any thoughts in how he got radicalized?

Chief Waters: That’s still under investigation by the FBI – too early to tell.

Question: What’s the difference between a hate crime and terrorism?

Mayor: Look, I am simply saying that we have two things here. Obviously, terrorism, which is killing innocent people and the choice to do it at an LGBT club. We don’t know all the motivations that’s why we’ll have a full investigation, but it seems clear from what we can see with our own eyes that there was a hatred toward the LGBT community. It was a part of this.

Question: During Ramadan there’s been calls by ISIS to carry out attacks. Have you noticed more chatter now that Ramadan is here?

Chief Waters: We’re very well plugged into the fact that there have been calls for attacks during Ramadan. We’re following all the intelligence around the world to better protect the City.

Question: Did he have a New York gun license by – do you know if he had one?

Chief Waters: Well, we don’t have any indication that he had any license at all.

Question: Question for Mayor de Blasio regarding the Broadway Stages donation. Are you planning –

Mayor: We’re staying on topic.

Question: [Inaudible] Irving Plaza calls about club security – do you guys have concerns about club security here as well?

Mayor: I’ll start then turn it to the Chief. I mean, we have been focused – as you remember a couple months ago we announced operation to focus more on both legal and illegal clubs and beef up NYPD presence [inaudible].

Chief Waters: Any crowded venue I always a concern of ours. That’s why we work loosely with the club owners to make sure that proper security is in place [inaudible].

Mayor: Thank you, everyone.