Update, 6 p.m.: Staten Island Borough President Jimmy Oddo says Staten Island’s bridges are reopening. However, the NYPD tells Patch that police checkpoints are still operating at all the bridges as they continue to search for the suspects, causing major traffic delays.
Police now believe the suspects were carrying paintball guns, not rifles. You can find the NYPD’s most recent statement on the situation in Staten Island at the bottom of this post.
Staten Island residents began reporting swarms of policemen and traffic barricades posted throughout the borough early Friday afternoon.
And as of 3:40 p.m., an NYPD spokesman confirms that the hubbub is in response to photos sent to the Intelligence Bureau Operations Unit by a retired officer. They show a group of men and women carrying what appear to be assault rifles in the Midland Beach parking lot. (Photos below.)
However, police say, “They could be paintball guns.”
According to Staten Island Live:
A heavy police presence was reported Friday at both entrances of the Gateway National Recreational Area in Fort Wadsworth as a result.
Witnesses at the scene said that heavily armed officers were notifying civilians to clear the area — only officers and residents of the fort were permitted to enter.
A staff member at the fort said she was told to pack her things and leave.
Police were accompanied by bomb-sniffing dogs and carrying machine guns.
Police tell Patch that they’re just being careful, given yesterday’s shootings in Tennessee, to put more resources in sensitive areas.
But they also confirm that the individuals in the photos “are people of interest we’re looking for.” One of them appears to be a woman in a headscarf.
http://twitter.com/NYCityAlerts/status/622125467500453888/photo/1
Officers are searching for the two SUVs in the photos. They reportedly both have New Jersey license plates, numbers A83FCB and PSJ52V.
NY1 reports that the Coast Guard lifted the Fort Wadsworth lockdown at 4 p.m. However, the NYPD still appears to be out in full force. Police checkpoints have popped up throughout the borough.
Traffic is said to be backed up for miles on some Staten Island roadways due to the blockades.
All Staten Island bridges have reportedly been reduced to one outgoing lane.
“Welcome to Staten Island where we can’t leave the island due to heli’s and cop cars everywhere,” writes one resident on Twitter. “When you have to go into Staten Island but all the bridges are closed,” writes another.
Our sister site, Patch Middletown, reports that the Coast Guard station in Sandy Hook was also placed on lockdown today.
Throughout the afternoon panic on Staten Island, activists have been protesting Eric Garner’s death by police officers one year ago today at 202 Bay Street in Tompkinsville.
Here is the latest NYPD statement on the security situation in Staten Island, issued at 6 p.m.:
Earlier today, the NYPD received information from a retired New York City police officer who observed suspicious activity in the parking lot of Midland Beach in Staten Island. The complainant photographed this activity and supplied the pictures to the NYPD’s Intelligence Bureau for investigation. The images show a man and a woman handling what appear to be semi-automatic rifles and pointing it in the windows of two cars. In some of the pictures, they are smiling. A bulletin was issued to law enforcement agencies to be on the lookout for the two vehicles and the individuals in the photographs in order to interview them. As part of the ongoing investigation, NYPD firearms experts conducted a forensic examination of the photographs. The preliminary opinion of these experts was that the weapons in the pictures strongly resemble replicas of firearms used in “paintball” games. Interviews conducted by NYPD and FBI investigators in New Jersey have revealed that the registered owner of one of the vehicles indicated that he was planning to go paintball shooting with friends today.
The investigation is continuing.
#FortWadsworth #StatenIsland #NYPD on alert for suspicious vehicles after reports of people with guns #MidlandBeach pic.twitter.com/gXWmln0sGv
— Greg Mocker (@gregmocker) July 17, 2015
https://twitter.com/ashish_k3/status/622150728409292800
At local #Target in Staten Island and at the slowest line ever. Just anxious to get out and get home. #StatenIsland #terrorism
— EW (@ewolbrom) July 17, 2015
http://patch.com/new-york/parkslope/breaking-staten-island-lockdown-nypd-hunt-possible-armed-gunmen
“Police were accompanied by bomb-sniffing dogs and carrying machine guns.”
“However, police say, “They could be paintball guns.”
Pitiful.
Unreal. Foreign troops on the ground. It just goes on and on…..
I know it’s not Sandy Hook/Newtown,CT they are mentioning, but it’s obvious psyops to bring it up in the story. It is an attempt to make the the public relive the horror(oy vey, da horra!) and intensify it’s effect by adding this to it. If you’re stupid enough to believe sandy hoax (NOT false flag, HOAX) then these people should scare your bloomers off, whether they are real or not.