Newswise — Gene Ferrara is the University of Cincinnati Police Chief. He has organized, coordinated and participated in security-training programs throughout the nation and has worked on-site security operations for NBC during the Olympics, including the 1996 Atlanta games, where the bombing occurred in the Centennial Olympic Park. He serves as chief instructor at the Executive Protection Institute in New York.
The first thing that a terrorist wants is mass media coverage in order to achieve a platform, and out of those mass media events, they want to find the softest targets. So at large events, from a security standpoint, we want to present a hard target – the stopping and the checking of packages, for example – this is crucial to the prevention of a terrorist strike.
The public can certainly aid us in the prevention of these attacks. I suggest that they watch their surroundings and notice who is unusually observing things. Who’s filming that approach of crowds to your stadium, and wouldn’t you consider that unusual if they weren’t a TV crew? Who’s walking around buildings and taking notes? The very first line of defense is to just be alert to people who have an abnormal interest in an event or an abnormal interest in a facility.
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