Security up at NY Jewish sites after France attack
Mar 19, 2012, 9:53 PM
NEW YORK (AP) – The New York Police Department stepped up security at synagogues and other sites on Monday after a deadly attack on a Jewish school in France.
The NYPD dispatched extra patrols to more than 50 locations throughout New York on the news that an armed man on a motorbike had attacked a school in Toulouse, a southwestern city north of the Pyrenees mountains. The shooting left a rabbi, his two young sons and a schoolgirl dead.
NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly said though there were no specific threats against New York, which has the largest Jewish population outside Israel, the police department decided to take the measures as a precaution.
“We have to be concerned about what happens overseas,” he said. “We have a significant Jewish population in this city, and we have to take that into account.”
The commissioner added: “We know that we’re the top of the terrorist target list, so we’re concerned about the so-called copycat syndrome, where someone might see the events unfolding in Toulouse and take it upon themselves to act out.”
The locations getting additional security included the Museum of Jewish Heritage in lower Manhattan, the Israeli Mission to the United Nations in midtown and the 92nd Street Y on the Upper East Side.
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