Sports Arenas and Entertainment Venues Warned of Potential Terror Threat
March 4, 2008 by national
Filed under Homeland Security News
As the spring sports season moves into high gear with March Madness and Baseball’s Spring Training, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI today issued an assessment, called “Potential Threats to Popular Sports and Entertainment Venues,” that said arenas and stadiums are attractive “potential targets during events.”
The assessment repeatedly noted that the FBI and DHS have no “information on any credible or specific current terrorism plots to attack stadiums or arenas in the United States.”
The report, however, said “operational planning and surveillance against sporting facilities are often difficult to detect,” and college and professional basketball playoffs, the stock car racing season, hockey playoffs and horse racing’s Triple Crown are among the events that “regularly bring tens of thousands of fans…into large open-access facilities.”
“The FBI and DHS put out a joint bulletin for law enforcement concerning potential threats against sporting events. This is routine; we have no current threats against sports venues,” FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said in a statement. “But with the start of the spring sporting events, we provide this information to law enforcement to be aware of any suspicious activity and to remain vigilant.”
Thirty-four incidents of suspicious activities involving arenas and stadiums were reported to the FBI last year, the report noted, however these “often lacked sufficient information to investigate or determine if a terrorism nexus existed.”
Other than being “alert” to something suspicious I don’t imagine there is much else a person can do to protect himself when attending a football or baseball game is there?