The New Year’s Day terrorist attack on New Orleans’ famous Bourbon Street has sent security for this Sunday’s Super Bowl into a frenzy. The presence of Donald Trump at the Caesars Superdome for the game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles, has further exaggerated these security plans.
In the early hours of January 1, Shamsud-Din Jabbar ran over and shot numerous people in the historic center of Louisiana’s largest city, causing 14 deaths and 35 injuries. The attacker, who carried a flag of the Islamic State (ISIS), died at the scene after being shot by police officers after opening fire on them.
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Din Jabbar took advantage of the fact that the system of steel columns installed to block vehicular traffic at the entrance to Bourbon Street, was being replaced in preparation for the Super Bowl, so the area was quite vulnerable.
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Since then, both the NFL and other federal and municipal agencies “revised the approach” to their security plans for the big event that paralyzes the United States every year, according to Eric DeLaune, who coordinates federal agencies in this operation. The New Orleans Police Department hired former New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton and his team from private security firm Teneo.
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The city has been taken over by security forces for days, but there will be approximately 2,000 law enforcement officers in the Super Bowl grounds and surrounding areas alone, New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick told reporters. She also specified that vehicular traffic will not be allowed on Bourbon Street and the city will block intersections leading to the most popular areas.
According to Kirkpatrick, security “had to ‘ramp up’ with Trump’s visit”, announced Tuesday, and the city “will have to close some additional streets for more days to provide him with a security corridor” for the president.
Drones are banned over downtown New Orleans and around the Superdome in the days leading up to the game, and there will also be flight restrictions up to 18,000 feet (5,486 meters), according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
The so-called “federal air marshals” will be deployed at the city’s transportation hubs, looking for suspicious people or activities and protecting against drones, according to Noel Curtin, supervisor of the Transportation Security Administration’s portion. Their mission indoors, undercover, is to blend in with other transportation users, monitor, investigate and neutralize any threat.
No one will be able to access the cordoned-off area surrounding the Superdome without their ticket and identification. The city has already begun closing and limiting traffic on streets near the stadium. The perimeter will include blast barriers and trucks will have to pass through giant X-ray machines normally used at border crossings, Eric DeLaune explained. He added that federal agencies, from the FBI to the Secret Service, are incorporating snipers on rooftops and will place SWAT armored vehicles around the stadium, in the French Quarter and downtown.
More than 100 bomb-sniffing dogs will spend several days scouring the Superdome’s 37,161 square meters and each of its more than 70,000 seats before game day, DeLaune added. No corner of the stadium will be left unchecked on more than one occasion.
