DETROIT (WXYZ) — It is Monday evening quarterbacking time, and the wonderful news is, after all the planning, the NFL Draft safety plan with the Detroit Police Department scored a touchdown for the masses of people who converged on our city.
Not only did we break a record for attendance, the execution of keeping everyone safe went off without a fumble.
As promised, I did a Check-in with the Chief follow-up after the draft with Chief James White, and here is the scorecard.
The NFL Draft clock counts down no more, but the bragging rights for how the city kept everyone safe during this three-day record-breaking and historic event for Detroit will last for decades.
Two years of strategizing really showed this weekend.
“In large part it worked, it really did, and it worked to perfection,” said Detroit Police Chief James E. White.
We met up with Detroit Police Chief James White to do a little Monday morning quarterbacking.
From the rooftops to the streets, the men and women in the Detroit Police Department blue were on it.
“I know when we were sitting over here and our stage was set up, they were like, they have snipers on the roof, you all had every inch of this town covered?” I asked.
“We did and I cannot get into any details of that part of our strategy. Absolutely, we had people on the rooftops communicating down to us information,” said Chief White.
If a potential fight was on the verge of breaking out.
“We have something at real-time called ‘Eagle Eye’ and what Eagle Eye does, they're able to tell us, hey, there's a crowd of people here that look like they're not getting along so we're immediately able to deploy people before the fight happens,” explained White.
Dealing with that massive record-breaking crowd went very well.
“We wanted you to see us every 20 yards we wanted you to know that we were there, but we did not want to over-police it, we wanted you to feel comfortable,” said White.
Once capacity was reached, thousands were stopped at the entrance for safety.
“That's a fire safety issue, that's a people safety issue. There's a number of things you have to consider fire marshal is like you've got some huge numbers give it some relief,” said White.
The only real hiccup was the cameras watching over the event went dark in the real-time crime center. A fiber optic cable was hit at a construction point.
“How difficult was that?” I asked.
“Very, we went dark for a while and that was all part of our layered approach and security strategy very concerning,” said White.
Mayor Duggan made a call to the higher-ups at AT&T, and it was solved quickly.
“Was this the most difficult to police?” I asked.
“It was, it was because of the footprint. 775,000. A record, an incredible record but we also had eight activations which had thousands of people at eight activations so when you pull all that together we're talking heavy numbers,” said White.
“As the police chief, how proud are you that nothing happened in your city?” I asked.
“I'm proud and I say it I got the best police department in the United States of America,” said White.
Chief White says he is so proud of his force and wishes his officers could hear the compliments he heard about his officers for being courteous and so helpful.
Just a great feeling all the way around on a job well done!
