The New York Police Department is preparing to deploy 700 riot cops to mitigate the potential mayhem expected ahead of former President Donald Trump’s anticipated arrest this week.
The NYPD is reportedly coordinating with senior staff members from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and officers who provide security at the state Supreme Court building in lower Manhattan to prevent violence or a riot similar to January 6.
The NYPD’s s Strategic Response Group is reportedly gearing up for a showdown between MAGA conservatives and anti-Trump protesters outside Manhattan Criminal Court while Trump is arraigned.\
This is so awesome!#TRUMP2024ToSaveAmerica pic.twitter.com/6tm6lhwR7d
— Uncensored USA 🇺🇸 (@CarlosSimancas) March 19, 2023
“If a significant demonstration materializes in the next week, NYPD sources said the force may deploy the Strategic Response Group, a roughly 700-hundred-member unit trained in ‘disorder control,'” The Daily Beast reports. “The department, if necessary, could escalate that response by deploying a Level 4 alert—which would put eight cops and one sergeant on alert in every precinct.”
Join the @NYYRC TOMORROW to rally for TRUMP against the politicized persecution from corrupt Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg.
Register below:https://t.co/GcrLcQB8Xm
— Gavin Mario Wax 🇺🇸 🗽 (@GavinWax) March 19, 2023
Prosecutors claim Trump violated campaign finance laws for a $130,000 payment his former attorney, Michael Cohen, paid to porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 campaign for her silence about an alleged affair.
Bragg says the payment, which was listed as “legal expenses,” violates New York law which prohibits falsifying business records.
Trump maintains he expects to be arrested as early as Tuesday on state charges for the payments to Daniels. Trump is urging his supporters to “Protest, take our nation back!”
Secret Service agents who oversee Trump’s detail in South Florida and New York are strategizing to safely get Trump into the District Attorney’s office amid crowds of protesters and media.
“Trump’s US Secret Service detail would deliver him to the Manhattan district attorney’s office for fingerprinting and then taking mugshots in offices of the district attorney’s detective squad,” CNN reports. “As is customary in cases where a defendant is allowed to voluntarily surrender, after arrest processing, the former president would be brought directly to an arraignment before a judge where he would likely be released on his own recognizance.”
The Secret Service may secure a press conference outside of Trump Tower, the publication notes.
It is unclear whether Trump will be escorted into the courtroom by security or Secret Service agents.
The NYPD is also coordinating with the Federal Bureau of Investigations to create a contingency plan to address an increase in threats to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his staff.
Bragg released a memo warning law enforcement is on high alert and investigating threats.
“Our law enforcement partners will ensure that any specific or credible threats against the office will be fully investigated and that the proper safeguards are in place so all 1,600 of us have a secure work environment,” Bragg wrote in a memo first reported by Politico.
Here is the full email from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to his employees, saying he will not tolerate intimidation after Trump called for protest. Story here: https://t.co/e6fuuYAKpV pic.twitter.com/8X3thHpwmy
— erica orden (@eorden) March 19, 2023
Trump supporters are descending on Trump’s Florida estate Mar-a-Lago to prevent the former president’s arrest.
If Bragg chooses to indict Trump, the 45th president would become the first US president since Ulysses S. Grant to be arrested.
Grant, the 18th president, was pulled over for speeding in his horse and buggy in 1876.