dailymail | New York's 'one percent' are hiring armed
guards to protect them from a feared 'zombie apocalypse' - stationing
former cops outside their luxury properties in Manhattan and the
Hamptons in preparation for a coronavirus doomsday where criminals come breaking down their doors.
Two
leading private investigative agencies in Manhattan, Sage Intelligence
and Beau Dietl & Associates, tell the DailyMail.com that business is
booming from rich New Yorkers who worry they'll become prime targets if
the coronavirus spirals out of control.
Clients are citing potential red flags -
thousands of police officers are getting sick, stores are running out of
basic supplies, millions of families are losing their livelihoods, and
hundreds of potentially violent inmates are being released from Rikers
Island and other jails - all due to the pandemic.
'These people are fearful of anarchy, that
crime is going to spike and that people will get desperate and steal to
feed their families,' said Mike Ciravolo, a retired NYPD detective who
serves as president of Dietl.
'They
fear they will become targets if this thing really ramps up. These are
very affluent people, with very, very expensive units.' Ciravolo said
he's assigned guards, round-the-clock, to secure an upscale co-op in
Soho and two luxury apartment buildings on the Upper East Side, and is
getting more calls every day.
Herman Weisberg, of Sage, said he started receiving Covid-19 business two weeks ago.
At first, it was clients who wanted
security guards to accompany them on errands to their banks, so they
could withdraw stockpiles of cash in the event of a run on banks.
Another
client, a business executive in Soho, called him in a panic, saying he
was seeking to acquire a firearm to protect himself, but couldn't find
one because all the stores he contacted were sold out.
'That moved up his decision to hire me,' Weisberg said.
Another
Manhattan power couple called Weisberg from their summer home in the
Hamptons, where they were hunkered down with their kids. 'They got on
the phone and explained they have an alarm system that they almost never
turned on,' Weisberg said.
'Now they're turning it on, but the husband was still stressed, saying, 'What good is an alarm if nobody's around to respond?'
The
husband was insistent on hiring 24-7 security, despite his wife's
hesitation and the fact the East Hampton police department is still
fully operational, with just one officer reportedly testing positive for
the coronavirus.
