In fact, New York was girded for exactly this type of attack — called vehicular ramming in the parlance of counter-terrorism expertise. John Miller, deputy police commissioner for intelligence and counter-terrorism, said that police had visited 148 truck rental locations in the New York area — U-Haul, Ryder, and Home Depot, among them. “We went and did extensive outreach to the truck rental business,’’ Miller said at a briefing on Tuesday. The online Islamic State magazine, Rumiyah Magazine, had suggested an attack on another New York institution, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. Truck rental agencies have been trained to reject customers who do not present a valid driver’s license or credit card or who make suspicious inquiries about the weight of the truck, according to Jacoby.

Source: Los Angeles Times November 01, 2017 19:28 UTC