Its an Auld Lang Syne of the times: For the first time, a police drone will be keeping watch over the New Years Eve celebration in New Yorks Times Square.
The unmanned eye-in-the-sky is the latest wrinkle in the New York City Police Departments ever-evolving plan to keep revelers safe.
About 7,000 police officers will be on duty for Monday nights festivities in Times Square, including counterterrorism teams with long guns and bomb-sniffing dogs. Police cars and sand-filled sanitation trucks will be positioned to stop vehicles from driving into the crowd.
And, above it all, a remote-controlled quadcopter will be giving police a unique view of the merriment – and any potential mayhem.
Its the first time the NYPD is sending up a drone for a big event.
Thats going to give us a visual aid and the flexibility of being able to move a camera to a certain spot with great rapidity through a tremendous crowd, Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism John Miller said.
Police Commissioner James ONeill said there are no known, credible threats to the city or the New Years Eve event. He encouraged spectators to remain vigilant and to alert officers if they suspect something is awry.
Theres probably going to be a cop within 10 feet of you, Miller said. If you see something, you can go right to them directly.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday that the city is expecting up to 2 million people in Times Square itself for the ball drop, repeating a figure often cited by city officials, organizers and television broadcasters.
Crowd-size experts say its impossible to cram that many people into the area, a bow-tie-shaped zone running five blocks between Broadway and 7th Avenue, and that the real total is likely fewer than 100,000.
No matter how many people actually show up, theyll all be screened with metal detectors at security checkpoints and funneled into penned off areas to prevent overcrowding.
Umbrellas, backpacks and coolers are banned, but those kitschy 2019 glasses are most definitely allowed in. And there wont be any popping champagne at midnight. The NYPD says alcohol is strictly prohibited.
That might be for the best. There arent any bathrooms, and anyone leaving the secure area wont be allowed back to their original spot. That means theyll risk missing the ball drop or having to squint hard to see it from a faraway vantage point.
Like last year, the NYPD is embedding detectives in hotels around Times Square in an attempt to thwart a potential attack like the one in Las Vegas last year in which a gunman shooting from a hotel room killed 59 people at an outdoor country music festival.
Police are also harnessing new technology to detect drones that arent authorized to fly.
The NYPDs drone adds to a vast array of visual surveillance that includes more than 1,200 fixed cameras and feeds from police helicopters circling above.
The department started using drones this month. It says theyll mainly be used for search-and-rescue missions, documenting crime scenes and monitoring large events.
Several of the NYPDs drones are equipped with thermal-imaging and 3D-mapping capabilities and strong camera lenses that can greatly magnify a subject.
For safety, Chief of Department Terence Monahan said the New Years Eve drone will be tethered to a building and flown in a cordoned-off area so that no one gets hurt if it happens to fall. The drone will never fly directly above the crowd, he said.
Unlike a helicopter, a drone is small and makes little noise. Between the sounds of performers and the confetti thatll be swirling at midnight, Monahan said some spectators might not even notice it.
Once its up in the air, it will probably be hard to see, he said.
(AP)
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