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NYPD commissioner: "You hope for the best and plan for the worst"

NYPD commissioner Bill Bratton joins "CBS This Morning"
NYPD commissioner on grand jury decision on Eric Garner's death, lessons from Ferguson 05:19

Update: No charges for NYPD officer in Eric Garner chokehold death case

New York City awaits a grand jury decision in a case that echoes some of the issues at play in Ferguson, Missouri. The decision on whether to charge a white police officer in the death of a black man could come as early as Wednesday. The city medical examiner ruled an improper chokehold was a factor in the death of Eric Garner. The case sparked protests over police use of force.

New York City Police commissioner Bill Bratton said on "CBS This Morning" that the NYPD has been keeping a close eye on the reaction in Ferguson as the New York City prepares for a decision in the Garner case.

"We had teams of detectives there from our intelligence unit. ... A number of those arrested were from New York. So to kind of keep an eye on them, but also see what new tactics might be employed by the agitators, professional agitators, to gather what we could and bring it back to our experience to try to prevent it," said Bratton.

Ferguson decision sparks nationwide protests 00:29

After the grand jury decision in Ferguson, there was a protest in NYC where fake blood was splattered on Bratton's face. Bratton explains the agitator who threw the fake blood wasn't from New York.

"We have the New York community, the people who live here, and then we have a lot of outside agitators who come in for these events. The individual who was involved in mine, for example, is from Utah, originally from Bolivia."

He said, other than that event, the demonstrations had gone well -- "no vandalism, no violence, no crime."

In comparison with the riots in Ferguson, Bratton does not expect a violent response to the grand jury decision in the Garner case. Immediately after Garner's death, 45,000 demonstrators marched peacefully and there have been no significant events in Staten Island, where the incident occurred, since then, said Bratton.

"You hope for the best and plan for the worst," Bratton explained as he prepares for the grand jury decision. "We've been conducting a series of community meetings throughout the city, with a lot concentrated, naturally, in Staten Island."

But the organizers of the demonstrations are not what worry him. "They don't want violence, they don't want vandalism. But it's the disorganized [protesters] that would be our concern, or the professional agitators, of which we have no shortage of here in New York."

To prepare for them, the NYPD has aggressively tracked social media and been watching the demonstrations to learn new tactics. "We adjust our tactics to their tactics very frequently and try to anticipate to the best of our ability what they're going to be."

It has also been announced the NYPD will begin training with body cams. Bratton said he is a supporter of using technology in policing and it will be used to "illuminate an awful lot of the he-said-she-said situations where we don't have video. And that will be a good thing."

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