TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — The tragic events in New Orleans have put a new focus on providing safety for large events. In Tampa, the Gasparilla Parades are just a few weeks away.
More than 300,000 people are expected to attend the Gasparilla Parade and retired Tampa Police Chief Brian Dugan says Gasparilla provides unique security challenges.
“We take a look at the invasion, where you have pirates shooting off guns and you are standing there watching this flotilla come in and there’s all kinds of gunfire, the reality of it is, it could be a bad guy doing something and how long would that be going on before you realized you had a problem,” said Dugan. He says law enforcement officers will now be on the lookout for a wide variety of potential threats.
“There’s just a lot of dynamics going on. A few weeks ago, our country was focused on drones, now we are back to vehicles being used as weapons,” said Dugan.
The former chief says vehicles have been used as weapons at other large events and it’s one of the reasons traffic is so bad for Gasparilla. “Part of the tremendous traffic congestion and traffic problems surrounding Gasparilla is that you block streets off so far away to make it safe for pedestrians to get to the actual parade route and to get them out of there also,” said Dugan.