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No 'Viable' Terror Threat to Chicago, Emanuel Says

By Alex Nitkin | November 17, 2015 11:15am
"The shadow of Paris hangs over" Tuesday's annual counterterrorism conference, Mayor Rahm Emanuel said.
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DNAinfo/Alex Nitkin

SOUTH LOOP — Speaking at a regional counterterrorism conference at McCormick Place Tuesday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel trumpeted the importance of emergency preparedness despite there being "no viable threat" of a terror attack to Chicago.

The 21st Annual Joint Counterterrorism Awareness Workshop brought together hundreds of law enforcement and emergency response officials from local, state and national agencies to coordinate how the groups would collectively respond to a potential terrorist attack.

Though the conference had been planned months in advance, Friday's multi-pronged attack in Paris lent a unique urgency to the event.

"Obviously the shadow of Paris hangs over this event," Emanuel said. "And there is no viable threat to the city of Chicago, but with that said, the partnerships we forge in this room are essential to keeping our cities safe and secure, and our residents safe and secure."

The conference centered around "table-top exercises" in which intelligence and law enforcement officials sketched out responses to imagined scenarios of bombings, shootings, fires and hostage situations in populated areas.

Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said the exercises were evidence that counterterrorism planning has "come along way" since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when he was a deputy commissioner in the New York Police Department.

"The coordination that we had in New York between [the Police Department and the Fire Department] was not very good on 9/11, quite frankly," McCarty said. "In the past, everybody just wanted to run to the scene. But as we just saw [in Paris] last weekend, when we have multiple attacks with multiple scenes, everybody has to stay in their lane. We have to play zone."

Chicago Fire Commissioner Jose Santiago echoed the importance of cross-planning between agencies, stressing that while law enforcement leaders have no reason to believe an attack is due in Chicago, they have to assume one is inevitable.

"The first responders are going to be alone when it happens — and it's going to happen. This is middle America," Santiago said. "And we have to have the foundation built here in Chicago with our first responders in the event that we need to ask for help."

Emanuel said Monday that he still plans to attend next month's international conference on climate change in France, as a signal that "these vicious and vile attacks will not break us apart but bring us together."

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