Police Reassure On Security For Passover

With Passover on the horizon, members of the Jewish community gathered yesterday at police headquarters for a security briefing.

The message delivered by Commissioner Raymond Kelly to the packed auditorium of religious and community leaders was clear: While there are no specific threats facing the city right now, the police department is taking security concerns seriously.

The department's head of intelligence, Deputy Commissioner David Cohen, warned of growing threats from Al Qaeda. He pointed to areas in Pakistan where the terrorist group has reconstituted itself to pre-September 11, 2001, numbers, and also spoke about threats posed by Hezbollah and homegrown terrorists.

In addition to hearing from Messrs. Kelly and Cohen, the group was given a presentation by the commanding officer of the department's Hate Crimes Task Force, Inspector Michael Osgood. Mr. Osgood said hate crimes are declining when compared with last year. He said the widespread press coverage of President Ahmadinejad's visit to the city last year likely sparked a rise in the crimes.

In the first 90 days of the year, the department has recorded 58 hate crimes, compared with 65 during the same period last year, Mr. Osgood said. Of this year's crimes, 24 have been anti-Semitic in nature, he said.

Mr. Kelly, whose popularity numbers are high among much of the city's Jewish community, touted the meeting as an opportunity to keep the public informed. "New York City represents the second-largest Jewish population in the world — it is only practical to review our assessment of security here in the context of global events, as well as our progress against ignorant crimes of intolerance," he said.