Rethinking Security

Safety measures at the Rose Bowl, site of the Jan. 3 college football national championship game, and other sports will be reviewed and significantly tightened in the wake of Tuesday’s terrorist attacks.

Expect intense consideration of the use of airport-style metal detectors at stadium and arena entrances, according to stadium and arena managers as well as experts in security and counter-terrorism strategies. “It’s a marvel that you can still get into a stadium without a metal detector,” said Ian Lesser, an analyst and anti-terror specialist at the Rand Corp. in Washington.

Expect that showing up at the gate will mean greater scrutiny of tote bags and coolers and that being in the stands will mean being recorded more often on surveillance cameras. Many locales already use some cameras, but as Andreas Carleton-Smith, a former member of a British military special forces unit, now a security expert at Control Risks Group in Los Angeles put it, “Now it’s a question of reviewing it.”

Expect this--the experience of going to the game will be different because security will be more visible, the idea being that visible security serves as a deterrent. But managers and security experts also acknowledged they face a significant challenge in the coming weeks and months--to find a balance.

“One needs to balance the need for more security with the need for life to go on in a normal way,” Lesser said.

Civil libertarians urged temperance and careful deliberation. “We understand the importance of security,” said Ramona Ripston, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. “But we also have to remember that people have rights and liberties.”

In the aftermath of the attacks in New York and Washington, officials at virtually every sports facility in Southern California said Wednesday they already had begun--or intend to undertake--a wholesale security review.

“All of us in big business and public forums have to pay attention to all the ‘what-ifs,”’ said Tim Mead, vice president of communications for Anaheim Sports, Inc., which includes the Angels and Mighty Ducks.

Before Tuesday, he and others said, some scenarios could be dismissed outright as mere fiction. As in “Black Sunday,” the 1977 movie in which a terrorist tries to blow up the Super Bowl with a blimp. Or “The Sum of All Fears,” the 1991 Tom Clancy novel in which terrorists explode a nuclear bomb at the Super Bowl.Now that terrorists have hijacked commercial airliners and flown them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, no possibility can be dismissed.

“What you and I deemed preposterous before isn’t preposterous anymore,” Mead said.

In San Diego, Qualcomm Stadium manager Bill Wilson held an emergency meeting Wednesday with police officials, Padre executives and managers of the stadium’s private security firm.

Wilson said he is considering additional police, security guards and metal detectors--even roaming cameras like those used in last year’s Super Bowl in Tampa, Fla. Police there secretly used the cameras to scan the faces of those entering the stadium and compare them against a data base of mug shots.

While the use of roaming cameras at the Super Bowl drew criticism from privacy advocates, Wilson said he particularly liked it. “I think that’s a great idea,” Wilson said. “Those people who complained about that as some sort of violation of their rights, I wonder what they’re saying now after what happened Tuesday.”

Author and futurist James Halperin endorsed the expanded use of such cameras.

“A [terrorist] attack is going to get easier as technology improves,” said Halperin, who lives in Dallas and whose 1995 novel “The Truth Machine” explores a future America in which privacy and other civil liberties are sacrificed in a war against terrorism.

He added, “We have to fight back with every bit of technology at our disposal, even if that means a little less privacy.”

Heightened security at Staples Center was inaugurated Tuesday with the suspension of 15-minute parking on 11th Street near the arena box office, inspection of all packages and deliveries to the building, and a thorough security sweep of the premises. The new measures will become evident to the public tonight, when Madonna resumes a concert tour that was interrupted when her Tuesday show was canceled because of the terrorist attacks.The concert offers a preview of what’s in store for Lakers and Kings fans:

Fans attending the sold-out show will undergo visual searches by in-house security personnel and will be scanned with metal-detecting wands. Airport-style metal detectors have not been installed at visitor and employee entrances, “but they could very well be” in the future, said Brenda Tinnen, senior vice president for event and guest services at Staples Center.

Tinnen also said more stringent measures are likely to become standard. “Unfortunately, I believe heightened security will now become a way of life,” she said.

Dodger vice-president Derrick Hall said the team is waiting to see what steps, if any, major league baseball takes. Because the Dodgers don’t have a home game scheduled until Monday, meantime, the LAPD is using the stadium as a staging area in case of emergency.

“Will we take extra measures?” Hall said. “Probably, as will people in all walks of life, because of recent events.”

At Edison Field, the Angels also plan to intensify security, Mead said. Fans will see more uniformed security guards; more plainclothes guards will also be on hand.

The Angels are resisting the installation of metal detectors. Mead also said, “People aren’t patted down. And I hope it never reaches that point.”

There is a history of security lapses at sporting events.

Some have been relatively harmless.

An actor looking for publicity parachuted into Shea Stadium, halting the sixth game of the 1986 World Series; another parachutist interrupted the seventh round of a 1993 championship fight between Evander Holyfield and Riddick Bowe in Las Vegas. A woman clad only in an apron made an entrance on Wimbledon’s Centre Court moments before the 1996 men’s final between MaliVai Washington and Richard Krajicek, who were photographed looking on with amusement.

But there have also been serious--and in some cases, deadly--incidents that have sharpened fears over the safety of athletes and fans.

In April 1993, a mentally disturbed German national stabbed Monica Seles--then the world’s No. 1 women’s tennis player--in the back as fans looked on. She survived.

A bomb exploded during the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, killing one woman and injuring more than 100 others. Survivalist Eric Rudolph, charged in the attack, remains at large.

And, of course, the incident that forever linked sports with terrorism occurred during the 1972 Munich Olympics, when 11 Israelis, athletes and coaches, were taken hostage in the Olympic Village by Palestinian terrorists and then killed in a firefight at a German airport.

In Utah, organizers of the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics next February say they intend to review their $200-million security plan, adding that planners must now seriously evaluate the prospect of a commercial airliner being hijacked and aimed at Salt Lake City during the Games.

South Korea announced Wednesday it plans to designate no-fly zones above its 10 World Cup venues during next year’s soccer tournament. The World Cup Security Control Headquarters, a task force led by the nation’s main intelligence agency, also announced plans to step up security around its stadiums and said in a statement, “We will review our previous security plans as we can not rule out terrorist acts during the 2002 World Cup.”

It’s unclear whether a no-fly zone will be imposed over the Rose Bowl for next January’s college football championship game. That’s up to the Federal Aviation Administration, and FAA officials could not be reached Wednesday for comment. The FAA has dual missions--to promote aerial safety as well as aerial commerce.

The FAA just this week published a regulation, due to take effect next month, giving it ongoing authority to impose what’s called a “TFR”--temporary flight restriction--at “major” sporting events such as the Rose Bowl game.

A TFR bans most air traffic in an imaginary circle traced on the ground around a venue for three or five miles and extending up 2,500 feet above sea level, Pasadena police Lt. Tom Oldfield said. Exceptions are made for certain craft, such as police, rescue and some media helicopters, he said.

The problem with asking for--even getting a TFR--illustrates vividly the problematic nature of trying to make things absolutely safe, Oldfield said. “I don’t know how that would affect things,” he said. “Obviously, those people,” meaning terrorists, “are people bent on not following the rules.”

Officials connected with management of the stadium and the Tournament of Roses stressed Wednesday that they are well aware of the special position the game Jan. 3 holds--and of the 100,000 people expected to attend and a TV audience in the millions.

Rose Bowl CEO Mitch Dorger noted, however, that the stadium has played host in prior years to the Super Bowl, the men’s and women’s World Cup--even a soccer game last January between the U.S. and Iran. And of course the Rose Bowl has for decades been the site of perhaps the premier college bowl game.

“Starting back several years ago, actually prior to the millennium celebrations, we recognized ... an enhanced need for security awareness,” Dorger said. “We foresaw this coming. We have taken steps over the last couple of years to significantly enhance the security of all of our events.”

He declined to be specific, as did the stadium’s general manager, Darryl Dunn. But Dunn said, “We just need to make sure we do everything in our power to make sure our venue is safe for the patrons and the participants.”

There are, however, no guarantees. Said Lesser, the Rand Corp. strategist, “Terrorism as a problem is not something you eliminate wholesale.”

He added, “The issue is what can one do to make American society safer and prevent the most catastrophic kind of attacks. It is unreasonable to expect 100% success. It’s not possible.”

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Times staff writers Helene Elliott, Rob Fernas, Tony Perry, Bill Shaikin and Steve Springer contributed to this story.