The NYPD is training every day and deploying hundreds of extra cops as it braces for Election Day and its aftermath, amid fears riots and protests could break out after the results are announced.
In a recent press conference, Chief Terence Monahan insisted that they had received ‘no credible threat’ for voting day in New York City. He added that police had been dealing with protests all summer and were ready to handle any post-Election Day demonstrations.
However, as the NY Post reported: While Manhattan shopkeepers board up their businesses, the NYPD’s elite Strategic Response Group has been amping up tactical training for weeks now in anticipation of possible violence and unrest.
“Our game is always up,” Deputy Chief John J. D’Adamo, the veteran boss of the SRG, told the Post. “We’re hoping for the best this week, but we’re prepared for the worst. People have gotten emboldened out there. We’re living through unprecedented times. But we’re prepared for whatever might happen.”
Protests in NYC have been frequent and often violent, from the initial George Floyd riots, where officers were attacked for 3 weeks straight to the recent incidents of Trump supporters being attacked in Times Square. Lawyers and even children of celebrities and wealth have been arrested in the riots which have become almost “trendy”
Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, noticed police chiefs around the country were extending shifts before Election Day.
‘This year is unlike any year,’ he told The New York Times.
‘People are afraid,’ Elizabeth Burdick, a Pennsylvania Trump supporter who owns a gun store, told the NYT. ‘They’re afraid of what’s going to happen’, after the election, she explained, adding that gun sales have been ‘crazy’
Some seem more concerned with right-wing violence. Despite all the hyped-up rhetoric about violence from the far right, thus far almost all violence since the start of the BLM insurrectionist movement has come from the radical left.
The main concern from the right are possible poll watchers. Trump has called for Republican poll watchers, all over the country.
In 2016, armed Black Panther members intimidated voters outside of Philadelphia polling places. None, the less the media are pushing a narrative that violent Trump supporters will be poll watching.
With 4 months of anti-police and anti-American, flag burning protests, violent protests, destructive protests, the media is telling the public, the right-wing is the threat.
Meanwhile:
In preparation for any emergencies, including widespread social unrest following election results on Tuesday night, the National Guard has been deployed in several states.
Fears of election night chaos have gripped state governments for the last month, forcing Gov. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts on Monday to “activate” 1,000 Massachusetts National Guard members.
And in Oregon, Gov. Kate Brown, for the second time in two months, declared a state of emergency for the Portland metro area, citing potential social unrest surrounding the election.
Governors have also mobilized Guard forces in Texas, Alabama, and Arizona to major cities in their respective states in anticipation of violence.