Change will take more than just protests, one organizer says. Here’s what people on the ground are saying.
The looting that occurred across New York City, prompting a curfew to be put in place, was an “intelligence failure” on behalf of the New York Police Department, said John Miller, deputy commissioner of intelligence and counter-terrorism, during a briefing.
If a couple of hundred people knew to be in a certain place at a certain time for criminal activity and we didn’t detect that, that’s on me,” Miller said.
Officials have gone back through social media accounts they monitor for illegal activity and haven’t such a post or calls for looting, according to Miller.
“So there’s a question in intelligence gathering, if you will, as to was that done through word of mouth? Is there a social media piece that we missed? Was it done on direct messages between individuals that became a game of telephone and expanded, but that only goes for the first night in Soho. When it started we responded and kept responding and responding,” Miller said.
Miller went on to say that looting was a feature of this protesting they weren’t anticipating and normally isn’t seen during these kinds of movements.
“We believe it was an opportunist action by regular criminal groups who decided to exploit this. And we hear that increasingly from the groups that are marching that they have nothing to do with that and are trying to disassociate themselves,” Miller said.
