NEW YORK (AP) — New York City’s West Indian American Day Parade, one of the world’s largest celebrations of Caribbean culture, is set to step off Monday with increased security after a fatal shooting at last year’s event.
The police department is sending thousands of officers plus helicopters and drones and using barricades to create a “moat” between marchers and the many spectators lining the nearly 2-mile (3.2-kilometer) Brooklyn parade route, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.
It will be the department’s largest deployment of the year, Tisch said, with more officers assigned to safeguard the event than New Year’s Eve in Times Square or the July Fourth fireworks on the East River.
“We are not going to allow one or two individuals to spoil the festivities,” Mayor Eric Adams said at a Friday press briefing, noting that there were no specific or credible threats against the parade.
The annual Labor Day event fills Eastern Parkway from Crown Heights to the Brooklyn Museum with vibrant costumes, colorful flags, and the sounds of soca and reggae music.
Along with crowds of hundreds of thousands of people, it’s also a magnet for local politicians, many of whom have West Indian heritage or represent members of the city’s large Caribbean community.
Last year, one person was killed and four others were wounded in the shooting along the parade route. Tisch said Friday that, a year later, police were still looking for the shooter.
The parade is the culmination of days of carnival events in the city, which includes steel pan band performances and J’Ouvert, a separate street party earlier in the day that commemorates freedom from slavery.
