Holly MatkinNew York. NY – New York Police Department (NYPD) officials have received information that MS-13 members are planning to target law enforcement officers at their homes, the agency warned in an internal memo on Tuesday.
In the alert, the agency’s 105th Precinct cautioned that intelligence information indicated members of the notoriously violent gang have made “threats” against officers who live in several Long Island neighborhoods, the New York Post reported.
“Intel has been obtained that members of MS13 are looking to ‘hit’ NYPD police officers, specifically in the Brentwood/Central Islip area, as well as possibly Patchogue in order to gain street credibility,” the memo read. “These members are conducting reconnaissance of [member of service] private residences.”
Although the threat has not been substantiated, the agency urged officers to stagger their routines, to “always be cognizant,” and to stay alert for anything unusual or out of place in their neighborhoods, the New York Post reported.
“Whenever a law enforcement officer is being threatened, especially by an organization like MS-13 which we already know is uber violent and has killed numerous people throughout the country if not throughout the world, this has to be taken serious,” Former Bureau of Investigation Agent Manny Gomez told WCBS.
“They are going above and beyond what any other gang does, and the scary part is that we already know that they legitimately carry out their threats and they are extremely violent,” Gomez added.
The MS-13 gang’s motto “mata, viola, controla” means “kill, rape, control,” U.S. Justice Department official Robert Hur told FOX News.
NYPD Sergeant Jessica McRorie said that the alert was issued “out of an abundance of caution.”
This is the second time in a year that MS-13 has threatened police officers on Long Island.
In April of 2018, the Hempstead Police Department (HPD) warned neighboring law enforcement agencies that it had received a credible threat through a reliable informant that MS-13 was “looking to shoot a cop in the Hempstead Area,” according to the officer awareness memo by the Nassau County Police Department.
An informant told police that the Salvadoran gang thought police had been making too many arrests, and “it’s time to takes the streets back and take out (shoot) a cop like we do in El Salvador” to make a statement, according to the police memo.
Any member of the MS-13 was authorized by the gang to carry out the attack, the informant warned HPD.
NYPD circulated the NCPD briefing memo to all of its officers because a large number of NYPD officers reside in Nassau County and commute into the city.