Gothamist
A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC.
Gothamist
Listen Live
News
NYPD Warns of Potential Enemies Within
By
Dave Hogarty
Published Aug 16, 2007
Modified Mar 7, 2008
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Never miss a story
Email address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .
By
Dave Hogarty
Published Aug 16, 2007
Modified Mar 7, 2008
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
We rely on your support to make local news available to all
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2026. Donate today
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
The NYPD released a 90-page report this week detailing how Western native residents can become politically radicalized and adopt a terrorist mindset. Although the report claimed that the likelihood of such transformations is lower in the U.S. than in European countries, the conclusions reached by the study were decried by civil libertarians and advocates for Arab-Americans. The NYPD's study is based on the cases of 11 plots over the past six years.
Radicalization of an individual reportedly follows a sequence of four distinct stages, although the report is careful to point out that individuals who go through some of the stages will not necessarily progress to committing terrorist attacks.
- Pre-Radicalization: seemingly ordinary individuals with regular lives and jobs adopt a jihadist mindset as their own.
- Self-Identification: individual begins to drift away from his or her prior identity and associate almost exclusively with others sharing a new and similar mindset. This phase is usually triggered by a personal catalyst such as the loss of a job or a loved one or real or perceived persecution.
- Indoctrination: an individual intensifies jihadist beliefs and concludes that personal action is required to further his or her cause through militant measures.
- Jihadization: a member of a cluster of like-minded individuals commits to an identity as a holy warrior and actively participates in the planning, furtherance, or execution of terrorist acts.
Critics of the report objected to the fact that it cast certain otherwise positive behavioral changes like giving up smoking or drinking as potential indicators that would raise suspicions of terrorist activity. The executive director of the Council on Islamic-American Relations accused the report of casting a pall of suspicon over the entire Muslim community.
The report focuses exclusively on Muslim terrorists but states "There is no useful profile to assist law enforcement or intelligence to predict who will follow this trajectory of radicalization," and it sounds to us like these steps could be adopted by any radical ideologist. Nonetheless police commissioner Ray Kelly called the study a "groundbreaking" new tool for law enforcement agencies investigating potential terrorists. Kelly also identified the Internet as "the new Afghanistan," as a place for radicals to adopt terrorist training.
(Image of "Jihad for Dummies" from Pub Philosopher)
Tagged
blogs
drinking
internet
jobs
law
law enforcement
News: NYC
nypd
police
police commissioner
Ray Kelly
smoking
terrorist
The NYPD
this week
Dave Hogarty
Read more
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
MORE news
Upper East Side braces for affordable housing fast track, and backlash from residents
A new land-use approval process could make it easier for developers to build larger apartment complexes in one of the city’s wealthiest, most densely populated neighborhoods.
By
David Brand
Published Sep 29, 2026 at 6:30 a.m. ET
Plan to modernize NYC's diesel-spewing produce market falls apart under Mamdani
Bronx officials are scrambling to try to salvage a transformative project worth $650 million.
By
Elizabeth Kim
News
Plan to modernize NYC's diesel-spewing produce market falls apart under Mamdani
Bronx officials are scrambling to try to salvage a transformative project worth $650 million.
By
Elizabeth Kim
Central Park birders, others remember 63-year-old woman killed in park
By
Charles Lane
Dump truck driver hits and kills cyclist on 34th Street in Midtown, NYPD says
By
Liam Quigley
New ingredient mandated for Latin American kitchen, restaurant plates in NJ
By
Arya Sundaram
Never miss a story
Catch up on the most important headlines with a roundup of essential NYC stories, delivered to your inbox daily.
Sign upEmail address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .