New Campus Gun Laws Have Colleges Shopping for Metal Detectors.
New Campus Gun Laws Have Colleges Shopping for Metal Detectors. For Big Schools, the Bills Are Eye-Popping.
Plans call for ponying up $1 million — and that’s just for the football stadium.
by Maura Ewing
·April 25, 2017
Sports stadiums and hospitals will be among the last remaining gun-free areas at public colleges and universities in Kansas and Arkansas when new laws governing firearms on campus go into effect in those states. But the sanctuaries are going to come with hefty price tags.
The campus-carry laws in Kansas and Arkansas go further than those in other states by requiring schools that want to continue to prohibit firearms in certain facilities to install security measures, including metal detectors and barricades.
Officials at three Kansas universities have estimated the cost of updating their primary athletic venues at more than $2 million. That estimate does not include the cost of staffing the new security checkpoints.
Public colleges in Arkansas have yet to release cost projections for the security apparatuses they will be required to buy in order to keep their stadiums and arenas gun-free. But an independent security consultant contacted by The Trace put the price tag of outfitting the University of Arkansas’s flagship stadium with metal detectors at nearly $500,000.
School officials in the affected states say the upshot of the policies are clear: If universities want to prohibit guns in sensitive spaces, they’re going to have to find a way to absorb significant new costs.
“That is no joke,” said Breeze Richardson, spokesperson for the Kansas Board of Regents, which oversees 32 colleges and universities in a state that has curtailed public funding for higher education. “The university system has been cut by $75 million over past three years.”
Starting July 1, anyone over 21 will be allowed to carry a firearm onto university grounds in Kansas. It is set to become the first state where both campus carry and so-called permitless carry are legal. Gun owners will be able to bring guns onto campus even if they have not obtained a concealed-carry license, a process that entails eight hours of training.
Kansas’s campus-carry law says that public colleges that want to prohibit firearms in designated buildings after the law goes into effect must install “adequate security measures to ensure that no weapons are permitted to be carried into such building.” The law spells out “adequate” to include both metal sensors and the personnel to staff them.
Institutions under the umbrella of the Kansas Board of Regents maintain more than 800 buildings.
The largest of those buildings are sports arenas, many of which also serve alcohol. The University of Kansas, Kansas State University, and Wichita State University are home to prominent Division 1 athletic programs whose football teams play in stadiums that hold as many as 50,000 spectators each. Accordingly, university leaders have made athletic facilities their first priority as they scramble to keep guns out of the bleachers while ensuring that their schools are also in compliance with the pending law.
On April 19, the Kansas Board of Regents accepted proposals from those three universities for installing security measures at their stadiums.
Wichita State was granted approval for up to 20 mobile metal detectors at an estimated cost of $72,000.
Brad Pittman, the school’s associate athletic director, sees the expense as less a product of the new law than an emblem of the times.
“It’s not uncommon to go to a large sporting event and go through a metal detector,” he said. “It will have a financial impact as we start up, but we made the decision that this was the right thing to do.”
Kansas State University in Manhattan got the go-ahead for 70 mobile detectors for its two sports stadiums, as well as two other event halls and the campus art museum. After the meeting, an official from the school’s athletic department estimated the cost at $1 million.
The University of Kansas’s plan calls for purchasing the necessary equipment to secure events with anticipated attendance of 5,000 or more. Jim Marchiony, the university’s associate athletic director, said his department also anticipates costs running into the seven figures.
“We think it is very important,” Marchiony said of upgrading security. “Our first priority at sporting events needs to be the safety of fans and coaches and athletes.”
Also underway at the University of Kansas, according to attorneys for the school, are plans for preserving the gun bans in place for child care centers and certain areas of the university’s medical center in Lawrence.
The schools are taking on the added costs even as state rollbacks to higher education funding have them contemplating academic cuts and possible tuition hikes of up to 5 percent.
Richardson, the spokesperson for the Board of Regents, said funding for security equipment at stadiums would likely come directly from athletic departments, which are less reliant on state support because they generate revenue from ticket sales and private donations.
“With careful budgeting and careful spending,” Marchiony said, “we will be able to do this without disadvantaging any of our existing programs.”
Kansas’s campus-carry law was passed in 2013 as part of a broad bill to allow guns in public places. While the law went into effect months after it was signed, universities were given a lengthy extension to comply. An effort by Democratic lawmakers to permanently exempt universities failed this spring. Higher education officials in Arkansas, by comparison, have had far shorter notice. Governor Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, signed his state’s campus-carry law on April 4, and it will go into effect on January 1.
The campus-carry law in Arkansas sparked turmoil after an earlier version that opened all campus areas — including stadiums — to concealed guns. Facing outrage from constituents and officials worried about the prospect of sanctions from the Southeastern Conference and National Collegiate Athletic Association against the University of Arkansas’s sports teams, legislators quickly passed an amended version of the law.
The final statute incorporated an opt-out provision similar to that of Kansas: public colleges that want to keep “firearms sensitive” areas gun-free have to pay for security features and have a safety plan approved by the State Police.
Nate Hinkel, a spokesperson for the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, the state’s largest public college, said the administration has not yet drafted a proposal for adding security measures at the Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium, which seats 72,000.
While the University of Arkansas prepares its plan, The Trace sought a ballpark figure (as it were) from Jeff Miller, who serves as executive vice president of New York-based MSA Security and formerly advised National Football League teams on venue safety.
He estimated the costs for equipping Razorback Stadium with metal detectors at upwards of $450,000. He arrived at that figure by following the general protocol of allotting one metal detector per 1,000 attendees. A going rate for a walk-through detector is around $6,500, though Miller noted that prices vary by manufacturer.
Though Idaho’s 2014 campus-carry law does not mandate metal detectors for gun-free facilities, Boise State University took the step of installing them anyway.
The 54 metal detectors it purchased for its 14,500 capacity football stadium ran $250,000, according to John Uda, the university’s assistant director of event security.
Setting up and staffing the machines costs $20,000 per game. Renting tents to cover the metal detectors runs another $3,500. The barriers that corral fans as they wait to be screened add another $2,500.
“If you’re going to do it, do it right,” Uda said.
He had a prediction for his counterparts in Kansas and Arkansas when the first full invoices arrive.
“They’re in for a shock,” he said.
https://www.thetrace.org/2017/04/campus-carry-gun-laws-university-cost/
MLB reviewing stadium security
By The Associated Press
This article was published May 4, 2017
BOSTON — Major League Baseball is reviewing its security protocols in all 30 stadiums after Orioles outfielder Adam Jones complained of fans shouting racial slurs in Boston this week and other black players reacted by saying it’s a common reality when playing in several cities.
It’s not yet clear what changes might be made, but league officials are starting by figuring out how individual clubs handle fan issues and complaints.
“We have reached out to all 30 clubs to assess what their in-ballpark announcement practices are regarding fan behavior,” MLB spokesman Pat Courtney said. “We are also reviewing text message and other fan security notification policies that are operating in the event there is an incident.”
All MLB teams have a mechanism for fans to alert security to issues, but individualized ballparks mean different protocols and practices in each stadium.
In Boston, Jones complained Monday night that he heard the N-word several times and that someone threw peanuts toward him in the dugout. Boston Red Sox officials apologized and said that only one of 34 fans kicked out of the game was ejected for using foul language toward a player, and it wasn’t clear whether that was toward Jones. Boston police said the peanuts hit a nearby police officer and Fenway security kicked the man who threw them out before he could be identified by authorities.
Commissioner Rob Manfred quickly condemned the incidents and said the treatment would not be tolerated inside any ballpark.
But after Jones spoke out, black players around the league made it clear that what he experienced is an ongoing experience during road trips, varying by ballpark.
“Everybody knows what those cities are. It’s bad. You’ve got security guards there and people there and they just sit there and let it happen,” Braves outfielder Matt Kemp said. “That to me is just crazy.”
Kemp said the vitriol in some parks has become a talking point among the dwindling fraternity of black players.
According to the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, the number of African-American or African-Canadian players dipped from 62 each of the previous four years to just 58, or 7.7 percent, on MLB’s opening day active rosters.
Dusty Baker, the Nationals manager who played 19 seasons, said Jones’ complaints weren’t surprising because he’s been targeted with racial slurs in almost every city he played in.
“Minor leagues, big leagues … from L.A. to New York, it’s more apparent in some places than other places,” Baker said.
Yankees pitcher C.C. Sabathia said he heard racial slurs from fans when he pitched for the Indians in Boston, but has never had a problem with New York, where security guards follow players out to the bullpen and maintain a visible presence.
“I don’t know what you could do. It’s easier for us because we have our security guards,” Sabathia said. “Maybe teams should travel with security guards. That’s made a huge difference since I’ve been here.”
Kemp said he spoke to security officials about a week ago about how things were getting out of hand.
“I don’t know what kind of precautions or what they’re doing to get things under control but I hope something is going to get done,” he said. “Of course the racial slurs are out of line, and that’s big, but there’s a lot of other big things happening as far as people threatening other people’s families.”
One model could be in some European soccer leagues, where clubs are held responsible for the actions of their fans. Soccer authorities have spent decades trying to eradicate racism from stadiums, with limited success. Sanctions were strengthened in 2013 after a high-profile incident in Italy saw Kevin-Prince Boateng lead his AC Milan team off a field after facing abuse from fans.
Parts of stadiums can be closed during matches after a first instance of abuse, while repeated abuse can result in fans being locked out of games completely.
Still, during a Serie A game in Italy on Sunday, Pescara player Sulley Muntari complained he was being racially abused by Cagliari supporters and the referee’s only action was to penalize Muntari for his protests and show him a second yellow card as he walked off the field — which amounted to a red card kicking him out of the game and his team’s next game. The league didn’t punish Cagliari because it said only 10 fans were hurling the abuse, despite a clear sliding scale of punishments for four years.
FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, has also given leagues the power to dock points or relegate teams for serious repeated racist incidents. Players also face a minimum 10-game ban in Europe if they racially abuse opponents.
But FIFA has been criticized for disbanding its anti-racism task force even as it prepares to take the World Cup in 2018 to Russia, where racism continues to blight matches.
Hall of Famer and Yankees senior adviser Reggie Jackson said improving security at ballparks might not be a magic wand.
“I don’t know how you control that,” he said. “You throw someone out of the stadium, you have them leave. And it would be interesting to see if fans really cheered.”
http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2017/may/04/mlb-reviewing-stadium-security-20170504/?f=sports
Boston Red Sox permanently ban fan caught using racial slur at Fenway Park
Yahoo, May 4, 2017
Boston Red Sox permanently ban fan caught using racial slur at Fenway Park
The Boston Red Sox have permanently banned from Fenway Park a man they said used a racial slur, a separate confrontation from the insults directed at Baltimore Orioles outfielder Adam Jones a night earlier but one the team says it is taking just as seriously. “I’m here to send a message, loud and clear, that the behavior, the language, the treatment of others that you’ve heard about and read about is not acceptable,” Red Sox president Sam Kennedy said during an impromptu update for reporters in the back of the press box during Wednesday night’s game.
We have to recognize that this exists in our culture. It’s not indicative of Boston. … It’s a handful of ignorant and intolerant people.
Red Sox president Sam Kennedy
One night after Jones spoke out about being called the N word by a fan in the Fenway stands, rekindling the debate about the city’s mixed history of racial tolerance, the ballpark was the site of another racist encounter. Calvin Hennick, a Boston resident bringing his son to his first Red Sox game as a present for his sixth birthday, wrote on Facebook on Wednesday night that a neighboring fan used a variant of the N word when referring to the national anthem singer — a Kenyan woman. Surprised, Hennick asked him to repeat it, and the other fan did. Hennick, who is white, was at the game with his father-in-law, who is originally from Haiti, and his biracial son. At first he assumed the other fan mistook him for a kindred spirit, Hennick said, but now he believes the man was reacting to the uproar over Jones.
I was sitting there with my mixed-race family. The more I think about it, the more I think it was a deliberate thumb in the eye. He wanted to prove that he could say whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted.
Calvin Hennick
https://www.yahoo.com/news/boston-red-sox-permanently-ban-fan-caught-using-205714232.html
Fans to have faces scanned by police at Cardiff Champions League final
Fans to have faces scanned by police at Cardiff Champions League final
- Posted by TheStadiumBusiness
- on 28th April 2017
Fans attending this season’s Uefa Champions League final will be scanned by face recognition cameras in Cardiff’s Principality Stadium as part of a police operation.
Faces will be scanned at the arena – formerly the Millennium Stadium – and Cardiff’s central railway station. South Wales Police said the image can then be matched against hundreds of thousands of ‘custody images’ stored by regional forces.
The stadium can hold around 74,500 spectators, while a further 100,000 fans are expected to travel to Cardiff for the June 3 game. The Champions League semi-finalists who could reach Cardiff are Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Juventus and Monaco.
The BBC news website said police intend to use the system to scan faces at various locations, but it will not be a condition of entry to the stadium.
Police said the operation is an attempt to further test Automated Facial Recognition (AFR) technology.
“The Uefa Champions League finals in Cardiff give us a unique opportunity to test and prove the concept of this technology in a live operational environment, which will hopefully prove the benefits and the application of such technology across policing,” South Wales Police said in a statement.
“This will be one of the largest security operations ever undertaken in the Welsh capital and the use of technology will support the policing operation which aims to keep people safe during what will be a very busy time in Cardiff.”
The operation will build on previous police use of AFR technology by the Metropolitan Police during last year’s Notting Hill Carnival.
Speaking to the Motherboard tech news website, Tony Porter, the UK Government’s surveillance camera commissioner, said that police must use the technology in compliance with the UK’s surveillance camera code of practice.
“My office has been in touch with South Wales Police to help them ensure that when deploying AFR they are complying with the code [of practice],” he said.
“I have seen the use of AFR increase [over] the past few years and a recent report by the National Institute of Standards and Technology indicated that facial recognition is a difficult challenge. Getting the best, most accurate results for each intended application requires good algorithms, a dedicated design effort, a multidisciplinary team of experts, limited-size image databases, and field tests to properly calibrate and optimise the technology.”
http://www.thestadiumbusiness.com/2017/04/28/fans-faces-scanned-police-cardiff-champions-league-final/?utm_source=TheStadiumBusiness+News&utm_campaign=8a11ad96cf-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_01_04&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d71bad5679-8a11ad96cf-24174101&mc_cid=8a11ad96cf&mc_eid=c5c7a5da61
17 killed in stampede at Angolan football stadium
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A crowd stampeded at a football stadium in Angola on Friday, leaving at least 17 people dead and dozens injured.
The accident happened in the northwestern town of Uige when hundreds of people rushed at one of the stadium gates, causing some to fall and be trampled underfoot, according to Angolan and Portuguese media.
Some of the dead were children who suffocated in the stampede, the Portuguese news agency Lusa said. Lusa and Angop, Angola’s state-run news agency, reported a death toll of 17.
Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos expressed condolences to the families of the victims, and instructed officials to assist the injured and open an investigation, Angop reported.
Spectators had gone to the stadium to watch the inaugural game between home team Santa Rita de Cassia and Recreativo de Libolo in the national Girabola competition.
http://bigstory.ap.org/fdb15e13dbdb46dabf51307599ced9b2
Egypt court confirms death sentences over football riot
Cairo (AFP) – A court Monday upheld death sentences against 10 people over rioting at a Port Said football stadium five years ago that killed 74 fans and sparked more violence in Egypt.
The February 2012 riot, the country’s deadliest sports-related violence, broke out when fans of home team Al-Masry and Cairo’s Al-Ahly clashed after a premier league match between the two clubs.
Ultras — hardcore football supporters usually blamed by the authorities for violence — were at the forefront of the 2011 uprising that unseated longtime president Hosni Mubarak.
The riot became one of the defining moments of the turbulence that followed Egypt’s uprising.
It sparked violent protests in Cairo where 16 people were killed in clashes with security forces and dozens of deaths in Port Said itself.
The Monday verdict of the Court of Cassation, Egypt’s highest appeals court, is final.
The date of the execution was not immediately announced.
The verdict was welcomed with relief by a group of 20 relatives of those who died in the 2012 riots, with many ululating outside the court as they held portraits of their dead kin.
“For five years my heart and my blood was boiling,” said Sareya Mohamed Ragab, whose 22-year-old son was one of the victims, adding that she can now “live again”.
Ahmed Mohamed, 59, struggled to hold back his tears as he clutched a portrait of his dead son Amr.
“I waited for justice for my son for six years, in torture and pain. Thank God the moment has come when I can say that justice has been done,” he said.
The court excluded an 11th defendant who remains at large after his death penalty was also confirmed in June 2015 by another court, but upheld prison sentences for around 40 other people.
The sentences include a five-year term for Port Said’s security chief at the time.
- Crowd ban -
After the riot, police detractors accused the authorities of having deliberately failed to intervene when the violence broke out to seek revenge for the active role Ultras played in the 2011 uprising.
One of the rallying cries at the 2011 revolution had been against alleged police abuse.
The overwhelming majority of those who killed in the 2012 riot were fans of Al-Ahly, one of Egypt’s biggest clubs which also enjoys overwhelming popularity in several Arab countries.
Al-Ahly have been crowned Egyptian champions a record 28 times, with arch-rivals Zamalek winning 12 times.
After the Port Said “massacre”, the government ordered premier league matches to be played behind closed doors and in 2015 a court banned Ultras clubs.
The fan ban was partially lifted in 2015, but was reinstated after a February 2015 stampede outside a Cairo stadium killed 19 fans on the first day games were open to the public.
Since the army deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013, Egyptian courts have sentenced hundreds of Islamists to death in swift mass trials.
But many Islamists sentenced to death, including Morsi, have appealed and won retrials, frustrating government hardliners.
The country carried out its last execution in December against Adel Habara, a jihadist convicted of involvement in a 2013 shooting that killed 25 policemen in the Sinai Peninsula.
The shooting incident took place days after police killed hundreds of demonstrators in Cairo protesting against Morsi’s ouster.
Habara had become a symbol for government supporters of a slow appeals process. He had been sentenced to death in an initial trial but was granted a retrial on appeal.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the former army chief who toppled Morsi, had ordered changes to the law to speed up the judicial process after a car bomb killed the country’s top prosecutor in 2015.
Habara was the eighth convicted militant whose execution has been announced since Morsi’s overthrow.
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/egypt-court-uphold-death-sentences-over-football-riot-104558186–sow.html
Security Breach at US Bank Stadium Blamed on ‘Design Flaw’
January 11, 2017 11:07 PM
Protesters, who rappelled from the roof of U.S. Bank Stadium after smuggling 65 feet of rope and a large banner through security, did not breach stadium security policies but did expose a “design flaw” in the new billion dollar stadium, according to the head of the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authorities (MSFA).
Michele Kelm-Helgen testified before state lawmakers Wednesday about security issues related to the New Year’s Day incident in which protesters unveiled a large banner calling for U.S. Bank to divest from the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline project.
Kelm-Helgen said a group of five protesters did not technically breach gate security because the contraband used to rappel from the roof was not made of metal and therefore would not have set off the metal detectors.
Instead, Kelm-Helgen blamed the breach on design issues with secured ladders.
“There is actually a ladder to get up to the roof on the ridge truss,” Kelm-Helgen said, adding that preventative measures limiting access to the ladder were not sufficient.
“(The protesters) were able to scale that and get up there so that is what is being addressed, is the design issue that allowed them to get (to the truss),” she said.
Kelm-Helgen said security will be added in vulnerable areas and a full security consultation will be done to identify other potential areas of exposure.
Dr. Stephen Ross, a professor at Concordia University who has studied fan interaction and sports stadium use, says the protesters exposed a “very non-traditional” risk.
“In this case I don’t think it was a design flaw with the stadium itself,” adding it would be easy to overlook such an issue during construction.
Ross said he is more concerned that the protesters were not flagged while entering the stadium.
“While there were no policies against bringing those materials in (to the stadium), it seems interesting the size and the amount of materials needed was able to get through the gates,” Ross said.
Kelm-Helgen addressed that concern during her testimony at the capitol, saying it would require security to have fans take off their coats before entering the stadium because the protesters wrapped the rope and banner around their bodies.
“Even then it could be under a football jersey,” she added.
http://kstp.com/news/security-breach-us-bank-stadium-design-flaw-new-years-day-minnesota-vikings-protesters/4368585/
Brawl at Arrowhead Stadium puts spotlight on fan safety at NFL venues
Glenn E. Rice On Dec 19, 2016
Source: McClatchy
Dec. 17–The cellphone video of a brawl Dec. 8 at Arrowhead Stadium had everything: Chiefs fans and Raiders fans, swearing and shoving, punches flying and bodies cascading down several rows of seats.
It all ended when several Kansas City police officers came into the frame.
The video quickly went viral and became a hot topic on sports websites and radio talk shows. It also reignited ongoing concerns about fan safety at NFL stadiums.
An analysis by the Washington Post in October showed a slight uptick in the number of arrests per-game from 2011 to 2015. Last year saw 6.34 arrests per-game league-wide, the Post reported.
San Diego Chargers games led the league, averaging 24.6 arrests. The Seattle Seahawks were on the bottom with 0.8 of an arrest per game.
The Chiefs came in at No. 18, in the middle of the league, with 1.8 arrests per game, according to the Post.
The number of arrests don’t necessarily indicate a stadium is more or less violent or dangerous, the newspaper said. Its research found that some teams with the highest numbers have zero-tolerance policies.
This season, Kansas City police say they have arrested 16 persons during six home games, an average of 2.7 arrests per game. The arrests included ones for disorderly conduct, non-aggravated assaults, thefts from vehicles and trespassing.
The biggest day was Nov. 6, when five persons were taken into custody as the Chiefs defeated the Jacksonville Jaguars.
About 200 Kansas City police officers, both uniformed and plainclothes, patrol the stadium and parking lots at each game. Sometimes police will don the jerseys of opposing teams.
That force is supplemented by Jackson County deputies, private security guards, federal agents and other law enforcement officers.
With an average home-game attendance of more than 75,000, the number of fans packed into Arrowhead Stadium would be comparable to a large city in Missouri, said Major Tye Grant, who oversees off-duty Kansas City police officers working at home games.
“What we respond to out there and with that many people, it is probably well below the average of a normal city of that size during that time frame,” Grant said. “Find another city of that size, that has that many law enforcement officers working at any given time. Then add hundreds of private security — that has to be one of the safest places in the nation.”
Security for every home game is well planned, Grant said, and evaluations are done afterward to determine what worked and where improvements could be made.
“I approach each game from a security standpoint as if it was the Super Bowl,” Grant said. “So there’s not a whole lot that has to change from one game to the other because we approach them as a major event.”
Grant said police made no arrests during the Chiefs-Raiders fistfight. The officers’ first priority was to break up the fight to ensure that fans not involved were not injured.
“After I make sure everybody is safe and if there is an opportunity to arrest somebody, then that is what we will do,” Grant said.
In addition to a highly visible security presence at Arrowhead, the team educates fans with messages throughout the stadium promoting a code of conduct and encouraging fans to report incidents before they escalate.
The team asks fans to report problems using an anonymous text line. Fans can give their section number and the issue they want security staff to address.
The team also trains its guest-services staff to find ways to interact more with fans before problems arise. The NFL has sent evaluators to home games to review stadium security measures. One was present during the Raiders game.
Unruly fans are sometimes taken to a stadium-security office that has a holding room. They are kept there until a police wagon can take them to one of the city’s patrol stations.
“If we arrest somebody, or if somebody insists on being arrested for something and their actions make it necessary to arrest them, then that is something that is no different than if we were standing anywhere else in the city,” Grant said. “We handle it as appropriately as possible.”
Copyright 2016 – The Kansas City Star
http://www.securityinfowatch.com/news/12288771/brawl-at-arrowhead-stadium-puts-spotlight-on-fan-safety-at-nfl-venues
3 slip rope, hooks past U.S. Bank Stadium
Dakota Access Pipeline protesters used tickets to enter U.S. Bank Stadium for Sunday’s Vikings-Bears game and smuggled through security nylon rope, carabiners and the 40-foot vertical banner they unfurled after climbing a truss, according to stadium manager SMG.
SMG released three surveillance photos Tuesday showing climbers Sen Holiday and Karl Zimmermann Mayo entering the mobile express lane at the Legacy Gate and later walking through the north main concourse about an hour before they scaled the third-level truss behind one of the end zones.
U.S. Bank Stadium surveillance photos show Karl Zimmermann Mayo, right, and Sen Holiday next to him, in all black, bearing the anti-DAPL banner and climbing gear. (Courtesy of SMG) 
Karl ZimmermannZimmermann Mayo was shown wearing a black, waist-length winter coat inside the stadium while Holiday had removed her coat and was wearing a T-shirt in the concourse photos.
“Our investigation shows these individuals properly entered the stadium as ticketed guests through our gates,” SMG marketing manager Lisa Niess said in a statement. “The individuals brought in nylon rope, a small number of carabiners and a lightweight banner concealed on their person underneath winter clothing.
“These items were distributed among the group of protesters upon entry. These facts are consistent with interviews law enforcement officials conducted with one protester, upon being taken into custody.
Spectators are required to pass through metal detectors for all U.S. Bank Stadium events. Moreover, the NFL requires all tote bags to be clear plastic and no larger than 12 by 6 by 12 inches.“Screening procedures are designed to detect items that cause harm, including weapons and explosives,” Niess said. “They had nothing visible in their possession that violated U.S. Bank Stadium policies and had nothing that prevented them from clearing the security screening upon entry.”
Sen HolidayNiess said Holiday and Zimmermann Mayo “gained unauthorized access to the ridge truss by scaling regulation standard physical barriers designed to prevent entry. We have taken immediate steps to implement design changes to prevent any future unauthorized access.”
“We expect to make additional changes, as we continue to evaluate protocols to strengthen security here, and share our findings with other stadiums across the country,” Niess said.
Carabiners are hand-sized, spring-loaded clips that climbers and rescue workers use to thread and connect ropes for rappelling. Many are made of metal.
“We are not saying a metal detector wouldn’t go off when these individuals went through the security screening if they were carrying metal on their person,” Niess said in a follow-up email.
“Carabiners are not prohibited items to bring into U.S. Bank Stadium. If carabiners are put into the screening bins, similar to where you would place your cellphone or keys, they would not be stopped from entering U.S. Bank Stadium because they are not a prohibited item.”
Super Bowl LII is scheduled for Feb. 8, 2018, at U.S. Bank Stadium, and the security breach is drawing NFL scrutiny.
Spokesman Brian McCarthy said the league “will review all aspects of the incident to understand how it occurred.”
Minneapolis Deputy City Attorney Mary Ellen Heng said prosecutors have asked Minneapolis police to continue their investigation.
“A charging decision will not be made until the investigation is complete, which may take a week or two,” Heng said in a statement.
Carolyn Anne Philips FeldmanHoliday, Zimmermann Mayo and another alleged accomplice, Carolyn Feldman, were arrested shortly after Sunday’s game. They were jailed on suspicion of trespassing and gross misdemeanor burglary and released Monday.
An attorney representing the trio did not return a telephone call or email seeking comment.
“Safety of all U.S. Bank Stadium guests continues to be the primary concern of all stadium partners,” Niess said in the SMG statement. “We will continue to work together with the Minneapolis Police Department to further investigate this situation. It remains our intent to prosecute these individuals to the fullest extent of the law.”
Meanwhile, Holiday and Zimmermann Mayo held a news conference a block away from the stadium Tuesday to reiterate their demands that U.S. Bank divest its financing deals with builders of the stalled Dakota Access Pipeline.
They refused to answer questions about how they planned the stunt in front of 66,808 football fans, their climbing expertise, tactics or safety risks to them or spectators displaced as a precaution at the start of the second quarter.
No one was injured during the protest. However, eight rows of seats in Section 102 were evacuated below the protesters while dozens of Minneapolis police, firefighters and stadium security officers swarmed the base of the truss to strategize how to get the protesters down safely.
After the game ended, Zimmermann Mayo and Holiday descended from the truss and were arrested without incident as lingering fans cheered and heckled them.
The Vikings said 185 seats were evacuated. The team was reaching out to affected ticket buyers, including 71 season-ticket holders in Section 102, to offer full refunds. Fans who purchased the seats on the NFL ticket exchange also would be refunded, according to team spokesman Jeff Anderson.
“We are deeply concerned about Sunday’s incident,” the team said in a statement Tuesday. “The safety of our fans, players, coaches and game day staff is of the utmost importance. Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority, SMG and Monterrey Security officials are currently leading the investigation to understand how this occurred.
“The Minneapolis Police Department is also investigating the matter, and we will withhold further comment until its investigation is complete and we have a full understanding of the facts. At that time we will look at the situation comprehensively so that all measures are taken to ensure such incidents do not happen again.”
http://www.twincities.com/2017/01/03/u-s-bank-stadium-protesters-had-tickets-smuggled-rope-carabiners-banner-past-security/
Fatal shooting after Meek Mill concert in Conn.
CBS/AP December 31, 2016,
WALLINGFORD, Conn. – Two people are dead and two injured after a shooting outside a Connecticut theater late Friday night following a concert, police say.
A Wallingford police spokeswoman tells the Record Journal that officers responded to reports of shots fired outside the Oakdale Theatre after rapper Meek Mill performed. Officers found two dead and say the other two with non-life-threatening injuries were taken to hospitals.
Police haven’t released the names and ages of the four victims. The spokeswoman says no one is in custody. Authorities didn’t immediately release information on suspects or vehicles.
The shooting took place not long after 11 p.m. as the concert was letting out, CBS Hartford affiliate WFSB reported. Police said gunfire rang out near the theater in a parking lot adjacent to the venue.
The number of shooters remains unclear. Police believe that those involved attended the concert.
Meek Mill was not injured and isn’t believed to be connected to those involved.
Mill, whose real name is Robert Williams, was recently under house arrest after violating probation for the fourth time in eight years.