Transcript: Mayor Adams Briefs New Yorkers on Thanksgiving Day Parade Safety With NYPD Commissioner Tisch and Other Administration Officials

November 27, 2024

Video available at: https://youtu.be/93XrJCxZ2bM

Deputy Mayor Chauncey Parker, Public Safety: Good evening, everyone. I'm Chauncey Parker, deputy mayor for Public Safety, and on behalf of Mayor Adams, I want to welcome you to the Macy’s Day Parade security briefing.  

We're joined today by Sharon Otterman, chief marketing officer for Macy's, and in addition, the deputy mayor for Health and Human Services, Anne Williams-Isom, the police commissioner for the City of New York, Jessica Tisch, the fire commissioner for the City of New York, Robert Tucker, the commissioner of New York City Emergency Management, Zach Ischol, the commissioner of the Department of Transportation, Ydanis Rodriguez, and the executive staff of the police commissioner is with us today.  

Today, we are here to give you all a security briefing on the plans and preparation for the Macy's Day Parade tomorrow in New York City, the greatest city in New York, in the world, and on behalf of the mayor, we will now start with Sharon Otterman. 

Sharon Otterman, Chief Marketing Officer, Macy’s Inc.: Hi, I'm Sharon Otterman. I'm chief marketing officer of Macy's, and I'm so proud to be here with Mayor Eric Adams and our NYPD commissioner, Jessica Tisch, celebrating our 98th Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on this inflation night.  

On behalf of Macy's colleagues all across the country, we are so excited to bring you a parade that's going to line the streets with 3 million people and 30 million people watching all across the country.  

A long time ago, I was one of those little girls on the Upper West Side sitting on the sidewalk for hours waiting for this parade to start. I've been to every parade growing up as a New Yorker, every year with my parents coming to watch the parade, waiting hours and hours and hours, it felt like as a kid for this parade to start and the magical balloons and the marching bands and everything.  

As I was growing up in New York City, as an adult, I was going with my sister to the parade, and then we brought our kids every year to the parade. So this is a tradition that's near and dear to my family, and I'm so excited to be able to be here in this position to give the gift to New York City and to the country this week.  

I want to thank Mayor Adams and Police Commissioner Tisch for this important partnership. We appreciate you and your teams and all the City employees to make a day like tomorrow such a great success. For 165 years, Macy's has been more than a store. We're a story, and we curate all things holiday.  

We have amazing stories that are happening in our windows, we have a holiday square that's happening in our buildings, we have Santa Land, and we have this amazing parade that is the largest parade yet. We have 5,000 volunteers helping us put this together. We have 17 balloons and 22 floats and 11 bands and 10 performance groups and 700 clowns. And of course, we have Santa Claus bringing it home.  

I'm honored to be here, and I'm privileged representing the whole Macy's team that works for months and months to be able to put this together for all of New York City and for the whole country. With that, I'd like to introduce Mayor Adams. 

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. Thank you so much. And, you know, we, as we do many events, the men and women of the New York City Police Department, we cannot think of a better partner than the Macy's professional team and team in operation. It's a real pleasure coordinating with you as we put on this parade.  

This parade is so significant in so many ways. The children, they love to see the sky-high balloons, but I love to see the sky-high purchasings that we see received in the city. This brings so much economic prosperity to our city, and it means so much to us. It's a great boost as we start off the holiday season.  

I say this over and over again. It's Thanksgiving, not thanks receiving. Let's go out and give. There are many New Yorkers who are struggling. Invite people to come here to participate in the parade. Give them an opportunity to see how we celebrate New York, and we're going to do it the right way.  

Commissioner Tisch and the team of the men and women behind us, from the New York City Police Department, Office of Emergency Management, and the entire team, we're out here to make sure that people can enjoy the parade in a very safe way.  

And this parade marks the launch of our holiday season. Many of our stores get much of their purchasing throughout the year. It happens during this season, and we're excited about that. And while New Yorkers will be visiting and tourists enjoying the parade, uniformed personnel, some of them you're going to see, some of them you're not going to see. We know how to do this right.  

We're standing here also with our county intelligence commissioner, Commissioner Weiner. She's monitoring, she's making sure that any notable threat would be translated down to our rank and file police officer, Chief Maddrey, Chief Chell, Special Operations Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry. The entire team is monitoring to make sure that people can enjoy this parade in a very safe way.  

Security is everyone's responsibility. So if you see something, say something, and do something. Notify us. And I really want to take the moment to tell those grinches that believe they're going to disrupt the parade. It's not going to happen. Just as we responded last year, we're going to be on top of those who attempt to interrupt the parade in any way possible.  

And while we acknowledge the city will respect peaceful protests, we're not going to accept any violence or disruption in this parade. So there'll be no tolerance for interfering at all.  

And we know the magic of holiday starts with the balloons behind me. We want to really thank all of the volunteers. This is a Herculean task when volunteers come out and just want to show the enjoyment. For the children and families who come out to the parade, we want to say thank you and let's continue to do so.  

Before we turn it over to the police commissioner, I do want to thank the Department of Transportation, Department of Parks and Recreation, New York City Emergency Management, NYPD, citywide events and all the others who participate in the parade.  

We're monitoring the wind speeds to make sure that we can have as much participation as possible, but we would do it in a safe manner. And lastly, I'm going to turn over to Police Commissioner Tisch, but we do have a water main break 25 blocks north of here at 102nd and Central Park West. We shut off the water at around 3 p.m. this afternoon and our partners at the MTA are already already restoring a service on the A, B, C, and D lines for the eight impacted buildings.  

We have water on the go on site for residents to make sure they could have water. And again, I want to thank Commissioner Aggarwala for doing an amazing job with his team at DEP. And now I want to turn it over to Police Commissioner Tisch. 

Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch: Good evening, everyone. The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is one of New York City's most iconic traditions. And for the 98th year, the NYPD will be there to keep everyone safe.  

The successes of these events hinge on partnership, and we couldn't ask for a better partner than Macy's. Nothing about the planning and execution of this event is easy. But we know that the planning and execution of this event is easy. But the team at Macy's, especially the chief marketing officer, Sharon Otterman, certainly make it look easy. So thank you, Sharon, and thank you to all the people who work so hard throughout the year to make sure that tomorrow runs smoothly.  

This includes many New York City agencies alongside the NYPD, from the Fire Department to Transportation to Emergency Management, and of course, the Sanitation Department. These are the dedicated public servants who make life in our city possible.  

And I'm grateful to all the civilians and officers in uniform for their commitment, especially when they have to take time away from their own families during the holidays. This is difficult and demanding work, and in New York City, it's done by the very best officers in law enforcement. So we thank them and we thank their families, because New Yorkers are so fortunate to have the women and men of the NYPD in their corner.  

For tomorrow, we can tell you that there are no credible or specific threats to the parade at this time. Our intel analysts and counterterrorism officers have been preparing for this all year in close collaboration with our federal, our state, and our local partners.  

As a former analyst myself, I know firsthand how incredibly detailed, thorough, and methodical this work is and must be. We have to get it right 100 percent of the time, and we anticipate another safe and successful parade this year.  

As always with events like this, there will be security measures that you'll see and others that you won't see. Of course, there will be an increased police presence both along the parade route and in the surrounding neighborhoods, including entry point screenings, uniformed foot posts, bike teams, as well as aviation, canine, transit, and other specialized units. You may see our NYPD drones flying overhead, which are an incredibly useful tool when dealing with the huge crowds we typically draw for this event.  

And we will have you, the eyes and the ears of New Yorkers. There is no greater force multiplier than a responsive and an engaged public. So if you see anything that doesn't look or feel right, tell a uniformed officer or call 911 right away. Public safety is everyone's responsibility, and we know that we are the safest and strongest when we work together.  

One last bit of advice, if you're planning on joining us tomorrow morning, and we hope you do, we urge everyone to take public transportation to and from the parade. Street closures will limit parking and vehicle traffic in the area, so the safest way to get around will definitely be on the subway tomorrow.  

Most of all, we are looking forward to seeing everyone out there tomorrow enjoying this wonderful event. As a lifelong New Yorker, I can tell you it doesn't get much more New York than the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. And, as always, the NYPD is very proud to make it possible. So from my family to yours, happy Thanksgiving and enjoy the parade. 

Question: Mayor, happy Thanksgiving.  

Mayor Adams: Thanks, same to you. 

Question: [Inaudible] How concerned are you this year? Do you anticipate anything remotely large scale? 

Mayor Adams: You know, the New York City Police Department managed over 3,000 protests since October 7th. Those numbers are astronomical.  

And we were able to allow our major events from New Year's celebration to the Israeli Day Parade to so many other events because we deployed the manpower accordingly. But Chief Chell is here and Chief Maddrey can go over what our operation is going to be tomorrow. Chief Maddrey? 

Chief Jeffrey Maddrey, Chief of Department, Police Department: Just in terms of the protests, we're prepared. All right, last year we had to deal with it and we didn't allow it to stop the parade. We were able to push the parade over, we allowed the parade to continue, and we were able to take the protesters in.  

I believe last year we took about 40 arrests. Last year we had everybody out there, all my three-star chiefs were out there, all the bureau chiefs were out there. We were strategically in place with SRG, with CRC and CRT. We're going to have the same footprint out there tomorrow.  

We're going to have the full team out there. We're all working, we'll be in early, we'll be prepared, we'll be strategically up and down the route. And if anybody dares to go out there and try to disrupt the parade, we're going to make quick work of it. 

Question: [Inaudible.] 

Deputy Commissioner Rebecca Weiner, Intelligence and Counterterrorism, Police Department: So I think you're referring to what's called a Joint Special Event Threat Assessment [inaudible], which is a document that is habitually prepared before any major special event. It's an interagency document, 10 different agencies on this particular document put their heads together.  

And this is contingency planning, it's threat assessment. So it's developing scenarios and making sure that we have the resources that we need to prepare for whatever scenario may event. What it is not is a direct reflection of any specific intelligence related to this parade.  

So if you see language in there around vehicle rammings or lone actor, that's not because we expect any of those things to happen at this parade tomorrow. As the police commissioner mentioned, there are no specific or credible threats to the parade, but it is exactly the reason that we have the full suite of resources that we do present to protect any major special event, especially one like this one that takes place over space and time.  

So our sand trucks, our blocker cars, our canine sweeps, our heavy weapons teams, and all of the intelligence resources that inform our assessment about whether or not there are credible or specific threats. So this will be a safe parade tomorrow. It'll be a parade without disruption and we look forward to it. 

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