Behind the Scenes Protection at the Thanksgiving Day Parade

A recent article in Crowd Control Warehouse discussed how security personnel addressed crowd control at this year’s Thanksgiving Day parade in New York City, including the use of 6 miles of steel barricades, many stanchions, and 360,000 pounds of concrete barriers. The article also mentioned that in addition to the giant balloons overlooking the crowd from above, there were thousands of uniformed and plain clothes police officers on the ground monitoring the parade route and the general area where 3 million spectators were expected to be milling about. Several other articles mentioned that safety measures have increased drastically because of recent shootings across the country, and that apart from officers, there were heavy weapon teams, K9s and aviation units all over the parade route.

And those security personnel were most likely armed with the latest technologies used by the military forces, hazmat professionals, police, and fire departments to help keep crowds safe, and keep the first responders safe as well. We don’t know the exact instruments that were used at the parade, but we can tell you the types of technologies that can be utilized for safety and security of crowds and personnel on parade routes almost anywhere in the world:

There are multiple device types and technologies to protect first responders and the public, even when they are lined up for miles. For instance, chemical identification systems enable hazmat, law enforcement, military and other first responders to obtain accurate identification of chemicals, explosives and hazardous materials in seconds, even through sealed translucent containers. There are other types of handheld chemical analyzers that can identify a broad range of unknown chemicals and explosives in the field quickly, safely, and confidently using FTIR and Raman spectroscopy in a single instrument. First responders can use these instruments to identify unknown solids and liquids, from explosives and chemical warfare agents to industrial chemicals and precursors.

Narcotics analyzers give law enforcement personnel field identification capability for many new high priority alarm narcotics, opioids, and synthetic drugs, including fentanyl derivatives.

Portable radiation detection and identification technology can quickly distinguish between naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) and radiation from man-made sources such as improvised nuclear devices (INDs) or radiological dispersal devices (RDDs). A Personal Radiation Detector (PRD) is a pager-sized instrument that police officers wear as a primary means of locating a source as they walk the event. Spectroscopic Area Monitors can detect and identify radiation on location and report results to users miles away from the source. A Radiation Detection Backpack allows officers to strap the backpack on, and unobtrusively locate and very rapidly detect gamma-emitting radioactive sources in large areas — especially useful for a parade route.

A Parade Route Radiation Monitoring document and diagram is a case study that can be used by security personal to outline the appropriate places for radiation monitoring and detection equipment to be placed. This is not for a specific Thanksgiving route, but the diagram gives a nice example of how police can monitor traffic and fans along a long parade route in a populated area. (You can see the NYC Thanksgiving Day parade route here.)

So, if you are planning on becoming one of the 3 million+ people in NYC next year focused on the bands, balloons, singers, and selfies, rest assured that there will be first responders in the background, monitoring your safety.

Resources:

See additional technologies and solutions for law enforcement and first responder agencies in our online Safety and Security Threat Detection web center.