Pope Francis’ visit to New York will coincide with the United Nations General Assembly next month, spurring an “unprecedented” security challenge for the city, Police Commissioner Bill Bratton reiterated Monday.
The Sept. 25 event differs from years past “in the sense that we have an extraordinarily large UN delegation coming in, [and] we have the pope coming in for several days,’’ Bratton told reporters.
Deputy Commissioner John Miller outlined the risks of hosting a national-security level event with so many prominent world leaders, saying that they are expecting more than 160 UN members to attend.
“You are going to have two events that are going to cause significant issues with traffic, significant challenges with crowd control and . . . with that many world leaders in one city, as well as the pope . . . we have the threat and specter of terrorism,” Miller said.