Brooklyn Heights

BP Adams offers reward in Brooklyn Bridge flag security breach

$5,000 for info leading to arrest of culprits

July 22, 2014 By Mary Frost Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Broklyn BP Eric Adams joined City Councilmember Margaret Chin. Photo by Mary Frost
Share this:

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams is offering a $5,000 reward on for information leading to the arrest of suspects connected with Tuesday’s Brooklyn Bridge flag security breach.

Two giant white flags were discovered flapping over the Brooklyn Bridge towers early Tuesday morning, replacing the 12 by 18-foot American flags which normally wave atop the iconic archways.

______________________________

See photos and full details of NYPD’s Brooklyn Bridge flag operation here

Subscribe to our newsletters

______________________________

Adams said that he considered the incident to be a terrorist act. “It infringes on public safety and gives the impression of bringing terror.”

“If flying a white flag atop the Brooklyn Bridge is someone’s idea of a joke, I’m not laughing,” BP Adams said at a press conference held at the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge walkway at Tillary Street. “We’re sending a clear and loud message that we will not stand by and let our flag be desecrated and our security breached,” he said. Adams was joined at the press event by City Councilmember Margaret Chin (Manhattan D-1).

Hours earlier, the NYPD Emergency Service Unit had removed the flags, and workers brought up a fresh set of Stars and Stripes.

Adams, a former police officer, thanked the 84th Precinct, which patrols the bridge, and asked members of the public to report any suspicious activity they may have noted in the area. In answer to a reporter’s question, Adams said that the NYPD vehicles stationed at the entrances to the bridge were there to prevent trucks, which present a terrorist threat, from entering the roadway.

He also said that police were looking into the possibility that the white flags were actually former American flags that had been bleached.

Councilmember Chin, representing the district on the Manhattan side of the bridge, told reporters, “This is not a laughing matter,” “We are outraged. Pedestrians and drivers would be defenseless in an attack.

“We will never surrender public safety,” she added. “We will never wave the white flag.

While the incident does not appear to be immediately linked to terrorism, an NYPD spokesperson told the Brooklyn Eagle that the incident was being investigated by the Counterterrorism Unit.

A review of the Brooklyn Bridge EarthCam shows the east tower’s flag light going out at 3:42 a.m.

According to CBS, police found large aluminum pans covering up the lights that normally illuminate the flags.

Whoever placed the white flags could be charged with criminal trespass, malicious mischief, and reckless endangerment, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence John Miller told CBS.


Leave a Comment


Leave a Comment