The suspects who swapped out the American flag for a bleached white flag — the international symbol for surrender — over the Brooklyn Bridge have been identified by their nicknames, police reported.
That’s after an embarrassed New York Police Department assigned almost three dozen special team detectives who normally worked homicides, counterterrorism and in intelligence to crack the flag-swapping case, the New York Post reported. The suspects were able to climb the 276-foot towers earlier this week and plant the white flag, despite the fact that police were supposed to be patrolling and monitoring the bridge.
Now police are trying to get the suspects’ actual names, so they can locate them and bring them in for questioning, sources told the New York Post.
“We have no good images of these guys on cameras,” said one police source, to the newspaper. “None of the footage captures the perpetrators of this crime.”
Police said on Wednesday that they had been looking for four or five men who were captured on video walking near the bridge, carting backpacks. Detectives also reported they were looking with suspicious eyes at workers on the bridge who had access.
The NYPD has since set up additional security cameras near the bridge and sent in more foot patrols.
“We’re on high alert,” said one police officer who worked in the counterterrorism unit, the New York Post said.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.