Recent acts of terror in Europe are the “new normal” and surely coming soon to the United States, former NYPD commissioner Bill Bratton ominously warned on Sunday.
Evil doers have stepped up attacks on soft targets – such as London Bridge, Manchester Arena and Bastille Day in Nice in the past 12 months, making a similar terrorist strike on American soil inevitable, Bratton told “The Cats Roundtable.”
“(European-style terror attacks are) going to be the new normal in our world,” Bratton told interviewer John Catsimatidis on AM 970. “The pace of terrorist attacks, certainly in Europe, has been increasing.” Bratton warned: “That type of attack is quite likely to occur in the United States at some point in time.”
Even as US-backed forces close in on ISIS in Raqqa, Syria, the terror group will only spread from a setback in a conventional war, according to Bratton – analogizing it to a particularly gross medical procedure.
“As the issue in Syria comes to closure as ISIS loses its last city in the caliphate, unfortunately, it is like lancing a boil,” he said.
“What is inside will spread around the world even more.”
Bratton blamed porous European borders for exasperating the problem.
“The open-border situation in Europe is compounding the problem,” said Bratton, who served as NYPD commish in two stints, 1994-96 and 2014-16. “It [hinders the effort] of trying to keep track of people who identify as terrorists or having terrorist leanings.”