Super Bowl security will be ‘more visible’ after New Orleans attack
![Memorials for people killed on Bourbon Street are seen in New Orleans. (Chris Graythen)](https://thumb.spokesman.com/uO6q6eDqVn9RLDznlEJuDvMVKgE=/600x0/media.spokesman.com/graphics/2018/07/sr-loader.png)
The NFL and other organizers bolstered their security plans for the Super Bowl in New Orleans in the aftermath of the New Year’s Bourbon Street attack and intend to deploy an increased number of law enforcement officers in a “more visible” manner, the league’s top security official said.
Cathy L. Lanier, the NFL’s chief security officer and a former D.C. police chief, said the league and federal, state and local authorities revisited and reassessed security plans that were 18 months in the making in the wake of the attack, attempting to ensure nothing had been overlooked.
“I think you’re going to see more visible uniformed presence, uniformed law enforcement,” Lanier said in an interview last week at a D.C. hotel. “And obviously there’s a significant amount of law enforcement dedicated to this event, so more uniformed and nonuniformed law enforcement.
“You’ll just see our security perimeter is normally pretty large and pretty significant for the Super Bowl. That’s not going to change. But you’ll see a lot more resources, a lot more people, a lot more law enforcement specifically.”
Lanier declined to provide specifics, either for the number of officers or the changes made to the security plans since a man plowed a pickup truck into a crowd of New Year’s revelers on Bourbon Street, killing 14 people in an alleged Islamic State-inspired rampage.
“My guess would be people who attend multiple Super Bowls, it’s going to feel a lot like every other Super Bowl,” Lanier said.
“There’s always a lot of security. My guess is you’re going to see more visible security. I think you’re going to see more uniformed police officers walking around. I think you’re going to see more engagement by police talking with people, engaging with people, trying to make people feel like they are safe.
“There are no known or credible threats at all for the Super Bowl venue. … I still get classified briefings. If there was anything at all for us to be worried about, we would know.”
The Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles will play in Super Bowl LIX on Feb. 9 at the Superdome.
The Super Bowl is classified as a Special Event Assessment Rating (SEAR) Level 1 event, defined by the Department of Homeland Security as “significant events with national and/or international importance that require extensive federal interagency support.” There will be a temporary flight restriction above the stadium, as with other NFL games. Federal authorities will be on hand with the technological capability and authority to mitigate any threatening drone activity. The planning involves state and local authorities and local law enforcement, the NFL and a collection of federal agencies. The primary federal security official for the game is Eric DeLaune, the special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in New Orleans.
“Obviously, everybody at the NFL and everybody else that’s involved in this planning effort is very saddened by the events of Jan. 1 but also watching very closely,” Lanier said. “So we know that security is top of mind for everyone as we go into this planning process, the last stages of the planning. But this is an effort that’s been underway for 18 months.”
According to Lanier, “hostile vehicle protection” has “always been part of our plan” and will involve “a lot of concrete, a lot of Delta barriers, a lot of Jersey barriers.”
Around 30 agencies have participated in the security planning for the Super Bowl, she said.
“Clearly every time there’s an event of any kind, any kind of terrorist event or any attack or any kind of safety or security event that happens … around a large event,” Lanier said, “we almost immediately try (to) look at that after-action: What are the details we can find out? And have we accounted for all of those things? That’s an ongoing thing for anybody in the security world. But hostile vehicle negation is something we’ve always planned for. … Security is what everybody is going to be thinking about. And so I think you will see … a greater security presence than you would in a normal Super Bowl.”
The NFL’s participation in Super Bowl security planning is primarily related to the game and the events in New Orleans that it sponsors and hosts. But thousands of NFL fans will be in the city and will participate in other events, in the French Quarter and elsewhere.
“Make no mistake that people that are coming into New Orleans are going to be looking for security,” Lanier said. “This is not a situation where people don’t want to see security. They do want to see security. And I think the city of New Orleans understands that.”
Lanier said there is “no doubt” and “no question” that authorities in New Orleans will have addressed the issues related to vehicle barricades around Bourbon Street that arose in relation to the attack. She said she is “confident that they have put a significant effort into making sure that they have security where they need security.”
One of the lessons that security planners must learn from the attack, Lanier said, is that they can’t become complacent and must “constantly evaluate, evolve, be proactive. And we can’t miss anything. We can’t miss anything once. So (it’s) paying attention to details and not getting complacent. We do a lot of large special events. And it’s important that every one gets the same amount of attention, whether there’s an attack yesterday or an attack 10 years ago.
“We just can’t allow complacency to be in our business. We’ve got to get it right every single time. They only have to get it right once.”
She has made “probably 10” visits to New Orleans during the planning process, she said.
“After any attack, for all of us in this business, we lie awake at night and search through our brains: Is there anything that we’re missing?” Lanier said. “Is there anything that we have missed? Is there anything we haven’t asked of the incident that occurred? … So all of us, this goes through our head constantly when an attack goes on.”
The process includes contingency planning for a range of potential issues, including weather events, she said.
“Regardless of how good we are and regardless of how great our security is, there’s always a possibility something bad could happen,” Lanier said. “And we have to be prepared for that and be prepared to manage that. … Every minute of every day and every detail has to be really well choreographed. So we do plan for things to go wrong. We hope they don’t, but we plan for them if they do.”