An NYPD Bomb Squad robotic on the scene of an tried bombing close to Gracie Mansion on March 7, 2026.
Photograph by Dean Moses
New York ought to rely each blessing that the bombs thrown by two wannabe terrorists at protesters outdoors Gracie Mansion on Saturday didn’t detonate in accordance with their depraved plan.
Had they accomplished so, doubtlessly dozens of individuals would have been maimed or killed — together with the protesters and nonprotesters, law enforcement officials patrolling the occasion, and reporters and photographers overlaying all of it, together with our personal Dean Moses.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch mentioned it finest on Monday: “We were fortunate that the devices used this weekend did not cause the kind of harm that they were certainly capable of causing, but luck is never a strategy.”
The NYPD invests billions of {dollars} in, and assigns hundreds of officers yearly to its counterterrorism efforts — probably the most strong program of its sort within the nation, and rightly so. We realized after 9/11 that New York would all the time be the prime goal of evildoers, and our police should be always vigilant in opposition to any risk which will come our method.
That sobering actuality stands earlier than us at a time when the nation has been hurled into an unofficial conflict with Iran. The extremist authorities of Iran has made worldwide terrorism a chief export for many years. Whereas the U.S. and Israel alternate missile assaults with Iran within the Center East, the priority is that the unofficial conflict won’t be confined there.
The perfect protection for New York Metropolis stays the NYPD. Whereas it can’t catch each lone wolf plotting to do us hurt, as Saturday’s incident demonstrated, it has responded to and foiled much more terror plots over the practically 25 years for the reason that 9/11 assaults. It has saved New Yorkers extremely secure, and our metropolis vibrant and affluent.
To proceed its important mission on this metropolis and nation, the NYPD’s counterterrorism efforts should proceed to be well-funded and well-staffed. Attaining this goal has develop into tougher because the Mamdani administration grapples with a $5 billion funds hole that have to be closed by June 30 — and the Trump administration has repeatedly sought to chop funding to town over the previous 14 months.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani has beforehand minimize the hiring of 5,000 new officers by 2030 that his predecessor, Eric Adams, ordered late final 12 months. Mamdani should reverse that call and proceed with the recruitment and hiring of these officers to make sure the NYPD can deal with any disaster which will come earlier than this metropolis.
Mamdani should additionally resist the temptation to impose draconian cuts to the NYPD to spare different packages within the metropolis funds. Exterior of higher controlling additional time — which has been a relentless downside for the division — that is no time to tighten its purse strings. Discover different methods to chop or fund different metropolis capabilities past taking sources away from the NYPD.
Luck will not be a technique, as Tisch reminded. However the metropolis has made its personal luck during the last quarter-century by being ready for terrorism and confronting it head-on. Maintaining that vigilance, we’ll keep on.
