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Bruins fans who miss puck drop have stabby Celtics fan to thank
By adamg on Thu, 03/12/2015 - 7:12pm
Two minutes before the puck was supposed to drop tonight, Alex Carlson found herself way far away from her seat as Garden security got extra tough to prevent a recurrence of last night's stabbing at the Celtics game.
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Comments
Imagine for a moment if there
Imagine for a moment if there was someone out there actually looking to attack a sports venue. Because you couldn't pick a much better target than hundreds of fans packed tightly into an enclosed space with limited egress.
Bonus points
Thousands of commuter rail passengers trapped trying to get around them.
Not too hard to kill people.
If you really wanted to. But it wouldn't be on live TV, and wouldn't be close to the athletes. There really is nothing you can do about it either way.
Foxboro security was horrible in terms of lines untill the end of the 2013 season when they installed airport style Metal detectors for bags and metal objects. Now the lines move 5x as fast.
These lines look like they suck.
More security theater
So "enhanced security" tonight. Garden security has always been a big joke and this just confirms it.
Especially at Celtics games, try finding security or an usher near the end of the game. I had an incident in the balcony with a drunk during the fourth quarter a couple of years ago. I left my seat to find someone, anyone, an usher, a security guy, a cop. Nothing. I finally found an usher on the other side of the court from my seat, but he had no method of communication other that "I'll have to go find someone".
Most ushers in the balcony are long gone after the second half begins (with some notable excpetions). I have complained in detail to Celtics management and Garden security, but it only gets worse.
Doesn't the garden's security
Doesn't the garden's security use a trunked radio system, too? You'd think if they went to that much trouble versus using FM freqs, they'd have the practices to show for it.
Digital trunked radio systems
are the two-way radio salesmen's equivalent of the snake oil remedies people used to hawk around the turn of the last century. An unnecessary application of advanced technology for technology's sake that is only designed to increase profits for large companies.
And if you doubt what I'm saying, ask yourselves this: Has there ever been a terrorist incident where the perps monitored radio communications prior to setting off their bombs, so they could target one specific train, bus, or whatever.
Answer: No. The whole 'bad guys monitoring radio communications to carry out their plans' thing is a fiction of Hollywood.
A-effin-men!
Until they wisely cancelled the contract, New York State was about to spend two billion dollars on a trunked radio system.
That's Billion, with a 'B', which is more than $100 for each man, woman, and child in the state.
Security vs Ushers
It appears that security does have some kind of radio communication system. However the ushers, who are the first point of contact for complaints or who often are the first to see a problem have no form of communication other than to "find someone"
A possible fight at a hockey game?
Shouldn't security first look on the ice for that?
According to channel 5
A Garden spokesman said there was no change in security procedures at the B's game last night. So all those people in the backed up line waiting to get to the game must be imagining things.
How many stabbings/shootings have occurred at games?
Celtics or Bruins or Icecapades...I don't care which. How many stabbing/shootings have occurred at the games with previous security levels? Just the one in the last 5 years? 10 years?
Occurrence is VERY low. Just because there was one *recently* does NOT portend that increased security is the appropriate answer. This is statistics. Increasing security is a costly over-reaction that creates even greater possible risks. It's exactly what NOT to do. Unless you can prove that there's an increasing trend of violence or problems, you're dealing with rare event statistics and the likelihood that another event will occur is EXTREMELY LOW.
This was a decision made from fear and uncertainty and a lack of true threat evaluation plain and simple.
Except those costs are
Except those costs are ultimately passed onto the fans, so ownership bears no increased financial costs of these measures. Only if fans decide they've had enough of being treated like prisoners in order to attend a sporting event and stay away from the arena does ownership bear any cost.
And the risks created by masses of fans waiting to get inside and be searched mainly lie outside the venue's entrances, likely reducing ownership's exposure to liability claims should such an incident occur.
But what do I know; I clearly don't have access to the highly classified security briefings that are behind these decisions, right?
I'm more pissed about lack of risk-based decision making
We aren't getting smarter as a nation, state, city...population. We have all this data. We have analysts pouring through it and sifting out seriously useful decision-altering results. Ways to improve safety, ways we waste money and effort, ways to decrease costs...
And we ignore it. We don't make the best move because it's not the one we already do or that feels good or that satisfies fear, uncertainty, doubt, or that makes the best jingoistic phrase, or that turns the most profit immediately at far too great a future cost.
This increased security over a sporting event is just a microcosm of the bigger problem. Whatever the solution (stop going to the games, etc.) is to make *this* particular decision maker choose differently, who cares. He shouldn't have made a bad decision in the first place if he reasoned more and reacted less.
I have access to them.
No extra cost last night, the exact same staffing levels as the night before. Bruins games usually get more searching than Celtics games though for the most part, and obviously had more last night.
And fear is an issue and that will cost he garden money if people don't feel safe. Not many people will stop going to games because they have to wait in a line, but they will lose money if people don't feel same and don't bring their famies to the games, especially at this point in the season when these teams need to sell 300 level seats to families. Families also tend to beat the crowds at the security choke points 5-15 minutes before tip off/puck dtop