D.C. police and federal law enforcement officials are on alert after an ISIS propaganda video threatened an attack on the District, but Police Chief Cathy Lanier is advising people who live in, work in and visit D.C. to maintain their usual habits.
"As soon as you change your routine activities to avoid terrorism, they're going to change and they're going to target those places," she told News4.
Lanier said she and officials of major U.S. cities reacted to the security threat immediately.
"We want people to feel safe and know that we have a significant security posture in place," she said.
Officials say there is no credible threat to the District, but Lanier said they still must take the video seriously.
"You can't take anything for granted. When you have people that are pushing that type of agenda, the fact that there are people out here who might take that action based on seeing that video, we have to take all of that seriously," she said.
With the holidays approaching, Lanier said she wants people to feel confident that D.C. Is one of the safest places in the country.
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"It's easy to err on the side of caution and then ramp down if we need to," she said. "It's not as easy to err on the side of not being cautious enough and then bad things happen."
