NYPD can shoot down planes

To serve and to protect and to shoot down airplanes. Following the September 11 terrorist attacks, the New York Police Department now has the means of taking an aircraft out of a sky, revealed NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly in an interview this week.

In a sit-down with the CBS News program 60 Minutes this week, Kelly offered a scary insider’s look at what New York cops of capable of doing in a post-9/11 Big Apple. Futuristic networks of surveillance cameras and radiation detection systems are only the tip of the iceberg of what the NYPD has in their hands in order to thwart terror, Kelly revealed, and the commissioner says that if an incident calls for it, New York’s boys in blue have the capabilities of shooting down an aircraft. “In an extreme situation, we would have some means to take down a plane,” Kelly revealed. The commissioner added that he would not get into details on what technologies the NYPD actually has at their fingertips when it comes to anti-aircraft weaponry, but said that the Police Department has “the device and the training” that could combat such an attack.Police Department insiders speaking with the Daily Mail allege that the weaponry in question includes a high-powerful anti-aircraft device that can be mounted onto helicopters and can be used to cripple airborne attacks. The NYPD publically noted before Kelly’s interview that a Barrett .50 caliber rifle is in possession of the Police Department, and that gun itself has the capability of taking down an airplane. Kelly’s revelation comes at a time when more and more insight into the extreme practices of the NYPD is being unearthed by reporters. Recent investigations from The Associated Press have tied the Police Department to an undercover CIA-led unit within the force that has deployed incognito officers into Muslim-majority neighborhoods to spy in mosques and community centers with the only basis being their religion. Amateur video recordings of the recent Occupy Wall Street protests have also shown that the NYPD has been far from reserved in their ways of dealing with demonstrators in Lower Manhattan, with clips on YouTube showing police officers using pepper spray on protesters who appear to be acting in nothing more than nonviolent rallies.In the interview, Kelly also notes that police have the power to monitor activities, such as those protests, occurring practically anywhere in Manhattan. The NYPD has a powerful network of surveillance cameras which can be used to monitor activities throughout the metro area and can even track people based on their appearance and outfits.Also in the arsenal of high-tech tactics is a radiation detection system which is made available on police vehicles and officers across New York City. Gizmodo reports that the system is supposedly so strong that it has led to false positives on citizens coming from radiation therapy. “We're the number one target in this country. We're the communications capital, we're the financial capital,” Kelly told 60 Minutes. “We're a city that's been attacked twice successfully. We've had 13 terrorist plots against the city since September 11. No other city has had that.”As a result, the city is taking a very preemptive and undoubtedly expensive approaching to catching criminals before they can carry through with terror attacks. Mayor Bloomberg said in a press conference earlier this year that “We live in a dangerous world, and we have to be very proactive in making sure that we prevent terrorism.” To The Associated Press, Bloomberg added, "As the world gets more dangerous, people are willing to have infringements on their personal freedoms that they would not before.”