NYPD to Permanently Patrol Protests with Machine Guns Posted on 13 February 2015 at 11:01 NEW YORK, NY- NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton announced Thursday that 350 heavily armed NYPD officers, called the “Strategic Response Group,” will soon be patrolling protests and the city at large. He said the new strain of hyper-armed police will be “…equipped and trained in ways that our normal patrol officers are not. They’ll be equipped with all the extra heavy protective gear, with the long rifles and machine guns — unfortunately sometimes necessary in these instances.” Bratton announced their purpose is specifically “…designed for dealing with events like our recent protests, or incidents like Mumbai or what just happened in Paris.” Lumping protesters in with terrorists, he said the permanent force will deal with “disorder control and counterterrorism protection capabilities.” It willallegedly assist on crime scenes and help with “crowd control and other large-scale events.”
