NEW YORK — The New York Police Department is assigning thousands of extra patrols in Times Square on New Year’s Eve, but they won’t all be in plain sight.
There will be uniformed officers, bomb-sniffing dogs and heavily armed counterterrorism teams. But there also will be plainclothes officers, assigned to blend into the crowd.
Many officers will be wearing palm-size radiation detectors designed to give off a signal if they detect evidence of a dirty bomb, an explosive intended to spread panic by creating a radioactive cloud.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Times Square will be the safest place in the world on Dec. 31.
Hundreds of thousands of people were expected to pack into Midtown Manhattan on Monday night to see the crystal ball drop and ring in 2013.