With that many bodies in one place at one time, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and Staples Center management and employees must know their roles and responsibilities, and the command and control structure in case of an emergency.
"We've had all the tabletop exercises with local government, local law enforcement agencies and the Department of Homeland Security to talk about what we need to do as a facility when the first responders get here," said Lee Zeidman, Staples Center senior vice president and general manager. "Technically we're the first responders because we're here, but once they get here I'm not making the calls; I'm turning it over to the fire department, the LAPD, and if it's a crime scene, the FBI or Secret Service."
Hardening the Target
Staples Center is owned by sports and entertainment presenter AEG Worldwide, and security is divided between two AEG teams. One team is responsible for activities and events inside the arena and the nearby Nokia Theatre. The other security team's responsibilities include the 1-acre plaza, two on-site parking structures and other surrounding exterior areas.
Hundreds of cameras monitor the entertainment complex. A command center is staffed day and night; walk-through security checkpoints that include a magnetometer - a device that measures magnetic fields - are used daily by event attendees and staff members. In addition, "crash-rated" planters made of concrete and synthetic-fiber Kevlar, are located in and around the building, Zeidman said.
Patrons approaching the Staples Center loading dock are greeted by barriers certified by the U.S. State Department to stop a 15,000-pound vehicle traveling at 50 mph, which secures the dock area so no one can crash through. The barriers remain up until a vehicle has passed inspection, at which point the barriers are lowered.
"We knew we are a high-profile facility, and we host high-profile events. So we decided we were going to be proactive and harden the soft target," Zeidman said. "That's been our philosophy since 9/11, because obviously we're never going to be able to stop everything that happens. But maybe if we make it a little tougher, they'll walk down the street because it is too tough to get in here."
Each staff member takes emergency response training, and emergency policies and procedures are updated annually. In addition, an informational session is held where officials from the bomb squad, the LAPD, the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) and Archangel (a counterterrorism partnership connected with the LAPD) speak to the facility's 12,000 part-time employees about emergency prevention and preparedness.
"We run an evacuation video prior to every event we hold here that drums in how to get out of the building in the event of an emergency," Zeidman said. "Granted, you can train, but in an emergency, you don't necessarily know how your staff is going to react."
Should an emergency occur, Staples Center management and staff are, as Zeidman said, the first responders.
"We've tried to train and prepare our staff through tabletop exercises with the LAPD, the Fire Department and the Department of Homeland Security on what they expect of the facility when they get here," Zeidman said. "We've gone so far as we've had the various local law enforcement agencies supplied with our CAD [computer-aided design] drawings so they can study the ins and outs of the building and understand where our air intake devices are in case we get any kind of airborne terrorism."
The Transition
Every night, the facility has a building manager on duty. "It's either myself or one of my top-level staff," Zeidman said, "who is the overall decision-maker for the facility prior to any kind of major terrorist activity or disaster where we're going to get the first responders coming in."
Each sports franchise that plays its home games at Staples Center has a team security contact onsite who would take direction from the building manager during an emergency. For the Los Angeles Lakers, that person is Tim Harris, the Lakers' senior vice president of business operations.
"In the event of a big emergency, there are a number of people involved in the conference, and that includes someone from the Lakers, the NBA, fire and police, and the building [staff]," Harris said. "But when it comes to when something goes down, we're going to be in the conversation, but we're going to be taking direction."
Command and control is turned over to the LAPD or the LAFD when they arrive on site. But the decision to evacuate would come from the person in charge at Staples Center, said LAPD Capt. Jodi Wakefield.
"Staples has a very developed evacuation plan," she said. "Their people are very much involved in evacuating their building, and we handle it when it gets outside."
Once local law enforcement arrives, the representative in charge at Staples Center joins the LAPD's command post, Wakefield said.
The command post is established when the Incident Command Structure (ICS) is set up, Wakefield said. The incident commander and operations chief, among others, communicate with each other at the post during the emergency.
Liaisons are set up between the LAPD incident commander and a representative from all the venues - Staples Center, the Los Angeles Convention Center and Nokia Theatre. Because those liaisons are from the venues, they know best what's going on and communicate that to the LAPD.
And even after the LAPD takeover, Staples Center employees continue to help with crowd management, secure the arena and keep the LAPD abreast of issues. "They would participate through the end, unless it was a safety issue and we were putting them in harm's way - then they wouldn't be part of it," Wakefield said. "But they would be connected to us throughout the whole thing, until it's done."
Part of what would foster a smooth response when the LAPD takes over is ongoing partnerships between the LAPD, Staples Center and the other major venues.
"We have the schematic of the inside of their structures, so we work with them on a regular basis," Wakefield said. "We do tabletop exercises so that we do the, ‘What ifs.' We have their plans that we've put into our standing plans so we understand what they propose to do, and then they understand what we're doing. And they're part of our command post, so we're always in communication."
Zeidman and Staples Center staff offer any help local law enforcement might need. "We're open in terms of whatever kind of training, whatever kind of help we can give [the] DHS or our local law enforcement and fire department."
On its own, the LAPD uses the National Incident Management System and ICS for major incidents, Wakefield said.
"We've also got the partnerships of the venue it's affecting, so for instance, if we're having the Grammys, there's an ICS that we'd put into place with venue security staff, and then everything falls underneath that: operations, crowd management, the fire department gets involved."
Secure Facilities
The $3 million security system for L.A. Live is run by ADT Security Services Inc., which has provided video surveillance, access control equipment and the design of three security command centers.
All cameras are from Panasonic Security Systems and are an even mix of fixed and pan-tilt-zoom. About 100 cameras are in and around Staples Center, about 200 cameras monitor Nokia Theatre and the surrounding open Nokia Plaza, and another 100 cameras are aimed at the ongoing construction sites. All cameras are recorded onto 33 16-channel digital video recorders, each of which has 3 terabytes of storage space - enough to keep about three months of video at a time, according to a Staples Center press release.
"We can see everything in and around the facility and everything outside the perimeter," Zeidman said.
In addition, the Staples Center security command center includes 16-, 20- and 50-inch monitors. During an event, four AEG security officers staff the center, while another 65 to 85 officers from the AEG security team conduct patrols. The LAPD typically has officers onsite, and the various sports teams often add their own security teams. Aside from dispatching the LAFD if a fire alarm goes off, ADT isn't part of the response team.
ADT also provides the card access system, which is based on a C•CURE 800 backbone from Massachusetts-based Software House, for Nokia Theatre and the construction area. The access system in Staples Center is being upgraded to a C•CURE system.
The parking lot is outfitted with remote assistance buttons. "They're called ‘code blue' in our world," said Roy Remsburg, national accounts manager of ADT. "If you're on campus - they kind of look like a missile, they have blue lights - and in trouble you can go to that and request assistance." The call goes directly to Staples Center security where the caller can communicate with a security member. Barry Stanford, certified protection professional and director of security for project developer AEG - and a 17-year LAPD veteran - said AEG and the police work closely together.
"The coordination between the two teams is seamless," he said in a press release. "For example, if we have to remove a patron from one of our events for violation of venue policies, we immediately notify the L.A. Live team members, and they will use the cameras to monitor that person until he is off our property. We work with a variety of law enforcement and security professionals to make sure our athletes, performers, patrons and employees are kept as safe as possible."
