Private security firm will assist police protecting Jewish communities
NEW YORK CITY NY Jan 2 2020— Following two vicious assaults near Monsey synagogues and rising anti-Semitic rhetoric, the county government has brokered an agreement with a Rockland-based international security firm to provide volunteer armed guards and technology to protect houses of worship and Jewish organizations.
The Pearl River-based Brosnan Risk Consultants will provide armed security to at least 16 Jewish organizations and supplement the guards by using multiple computers monitoring social media to ferret out talk of potential attacks, officials said Monday during a news conference at the Rockland County office building.
The use of armed guards and technology comes as fear stalks the Jewish communities in Ramapo and residents talk about arming themselves. A social media photo shows several men posing with rifles at a Forshay Road synagogue.
Patrick Brosnan, a retired NYPD detective and 23-year county resident, volunteered his company following Saturday night’s lone wolf attack on a Monsey rabbi’s Hanukkah party at his Forshay Road home, next door to his synagogue.
“I am deeply concerned,” Brosnan said during a news conference held by his former police colleague, County Executive Ed Day. “This is a terrorist act. We will offer armed patrols free of charge.”
Brosnan said his business will provide large, command-type vehicles in some areas, saying his people “will be hiding in plain sight.”
During the Saturday machete attack, five men were seriously injured — two critically — at the home Rabbi Chaim Rottenberg, the influential Kossoner Rebbe of Monsey who heads Congregation Netzach Yisroel next door.
Grafton Thomas, 37, of Greenwood Lake, has been charged with five counts of attempted intentional murder and burglary. He’s being held on $5 million bail in the county jail. He was arrested by NYPD police in Manhattan wearing blood-stained clothing and smelling of bleach, which authorities believe he used in an attempt to remove the blood.
Ramapo police and the FBI also are looking at Thomas for last month’s attack on a rabbi walking to synagogue on Howard Drive in Monsey, authorities said.
Thomas’s attorney, Michael Sussman of Goshen, issued a statement from Thomas’ family saying he suffers from mental illness and has never shown a propensity for violence or anti-Semitism.
Sussman was in the audience at the news conference Monday with Thomas’ mother, Kim, who wept at times as her son was described as a terrorist and coward by Brosnan and his associates. Sussman declined comment until he hosts a news conference later today at his Goshen office.
While the private security working with government has a mercenary feel, Day said using Brosnan to supplement the Ramapo police and Rockland Sheriff’s Department is “thinking outside the box.”
“We are fighting back as a community, as a county,” Day said, adding Brosnan will deploy the correct levels of technology and physical presence to assist the police. Brosnan’s forces include retired police, troopers, and FBI personnel.
Day said he would prefer that people not arm themselves and let law enforcement and trained people provide the security. He said people should call police, instead of posting on Facebook, if they feel citizens are walking public streets with illegal weapons.
“We don’t want people to feel the need to be armed,” Day said. “If they do, they do. I’d prefer they didn’t.”
Fears arising in Rockland from the friction between the Orthodox and secular communities were heightened by the Nov. 20 stabbing of a 30-year-old man on his way to morning prayers on Howard Drive in another quiet Monsey neighborhood. Although many immediately concluded that the beating was bias-related, police have not yet made an arrest or developed a motive.
Saturday’s machete assault took place just weeks after the deadly attack on a kosher grocery store in Jersey City, New Jersey, during which Hasidic Jews were killed, and amid recent a series of anti-Semitic attacks in New York City.
Growing tension in Rockland over development and zoning often turn into political fodder over the growing power of the Orthodox Jewish community’s so-called bloc voting power.
Much of the dialogue preceding the recent election focused on Ramapo, which is home to a growing ultra-Orthodox and Hasidic community. A video posted by the Rockland County GOP talked of a threat from this community and was removed after it was condemned for its tone.
Brian Paarmann, a Brosnan official and retired head of the FBI’s anti-terrorist task force in New York City, said social media can encourage violence. He worked 23 years for the FBI.
He said people utilize weapons to make a social, political and religious statements. Brosnan monitors social media with a bank of computers.
Paarmann said Thomas is accused of driving to the rabbi’s house on Forshay Road, entering and attacking people. He and others noted the house in the residential area is off the beaten path, so the attack likely wasn’t random.
Ramapo police continue to investigate the motive behind the attack and if others were involved.
“They are radicalized and mobilized,” Paarmann said of the influence of social media. “The key is to identify individuals before they act. The community is taking part.”
Lohud.com
