On Monday night, a 28-year-old white man named James Harris Jackson stabbed a 66-year-old named Timothy Caughman to death near Times Square in New York City. Jackson told police he attacked Caughman at random because Caughman was black. Authorities say that Jackson, who is reportedly a member of a “documented hate group” in Maryland, carried out his attack in New York “because it is the media capital of the world and he wanted to make a statement.”

On Wednesday, the NYPD announced it was deploying counterterrorism teams to guard potential terror targets around the city. It did not do this because of a murder carried out in New York City by a member of a radical ideological group who “wanted to make a statement.” The department’s move, it said, was motivated by Wednesday’s attack in London, which seems to fit the profile of other attacks carried out by radical Islamic jihadists but, to be clear, took place in another country.

Does that make sense?