NYPD Commissioner William Bratton says he has “no issues at all” with how police responded to a terrorism scare sparked by a group of people holding paintball guns in Midland Beach on July 17.
Police all but shut down traffic on Staten Island, restricting outgoing traffic on the borough’s bridges, and sent officers to secure Fort Wadsworth, after a retired police officer photographed what looked like a group of people -- one who appeared to be wearing a Muslim-style hijab head covering -- armed with assault rifles in a parking lot.
Ultimately, police confirmed that the weapons were actually paintball guns, and that the owner of one of the vehicles photographed told police and FBI investigators that “he was planning to go paintball shooting with friends.”
The incident took place a day after Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez, 24, opened fire on two military facilities in Chatanooga, Tenn., killing a sailor and four Marines.
“We were on heightened alert around the issue of potential additional terrorist attacks, so you have to take the events on Staten Island (that) Friday in the context of the national issue and the heightened sense of alert that we’re on,” said Bratton, speaking to reporters at the Staten Island Police Officer of the Year luncheon.
“So I have no issues at all with what went on that day. That’s unfortunately the world we live in today where we have to take those types of precautions, and fortunately it turned out to be something as innocent as people with paintball guns. But it could have been something much more severe.”