KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Anticipate extra safety — and nerves — at this 12 months’s Tremendous Bowl victory celebration no matter who wins Sunday’s matchup in New Orleans between the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles.
A capturing that killed one particular person and wounded about two dozen others marred final 12 months’s Chiefs victory rally, and a Philadelphia Eagles fan died final month after falling from a lightweight pole whereas celebrating the workforce’s NFC championship victory.
Kansas Metropolis plans to spice up its police presence if the Chiefs win a third-straight title, and Philadelphia would possibly grease its poles to thwart climbers if the Eagles win. New Orleans, which was the scene of a New 12 months’s Day truck-ramming assault and which is internet hosting the Tremendous Bowl, plans to dam some site visitors routes.
“There’s lots of people that’ll assume twice about attending an occasion like that,” fan Branson Albertson mentioned Thursday as he, his spouse and their children posed for photographs inside Kansas Metropolis’s Chiefs-bedecked Union Station, close to the place final 12 months’s capturing occurred.
“However I nonetheless assume there’ll be an enormous turnout,” he added.
Occasions like victory parades current distinctive challenges as a result of they’re open, unpredictable and draw giant crowds, mentioned Alex del Carmen, an affiliate dean of the college of criminology at Tarleton State College in Texas.
Final 12 months, Chiefs gamers had been leaping off floats to provide followers high-fives as buses stuffed with the workforce wound via packed downtown Kansas Metropolis. A few of that will doubtless change this 12 months no matter the place the celebration is held, he mentioned.
Different sports activities celebration within the U.S. even have resulted in gun violence, together with a capturing that injured a number of individuals in 2023 in downtown Denver after the Nuggets’ NBA championship, and gunfire in 2023 at a parking zone close to the Texas Rangers’ World Collection parade.
All of those incidents are studied fastidiously, Del Carmen mentioned.
“What we will do is be taught from the previous and hopefully final 12 months’s classes had been very, very vivid within the minds of these which are going to be planning these subsequent occasions,” mentioned del Carmen, who recruited college students to assist with safety when the Tremendous Bowl was performed in Arlington, Texas, in 2011.
There are limits to what security measures organizers can put in place, significantly in Kansas Metropolis, which is in a state with few gun restrictions. Final 12 months’s capturing, which appeared to stem from a dispute between a number of individuals, occurred with greater than 800 officers available to police an estimated crowd of 1 million individuals — which comes out to greater than 1,000 paradegoers to each officer.
“When you may have that many individuals compacted right into a confined area and all people is shoulder to shoulder, it’s simply exhausting to see the whole lot, is tough to account for the whole lot,” mentioned Jason Armstrong, a former police chief in Ferguson, Missouri, and Apex, North Carolina, who’s now a police marketing consultant.
“You recognize, we simply must have as many eyes on the market as we will.”
If the Chiefs win once more, there might be 200 further officers and the parade will transfer sooner, mentioned Mayor Quinton Lucas.
He mentioned final month that the town would “attempt our degree finest to make it possible for we consider each contingency,” however he acknowledged that some individuals may not really feel comfy attending.
“I perceive that and I get that,” Lucas mentioned.
Sharon Billington, a 63-year-old Chiefs fan who additionally visited Union Station, mentioned she plans to observe it on TV. She had household finally 12 months’s festivities and was terrified.
“The world is simply not able to have that proper now,” she mentioned of a giant rally.
Philadelphia is understood for having one of many league’s most rowdy fan bases. Lately, zealous Eagles followers have climbed road indicators, site visitors lights, bus shelters and even theater marquees to steer the crowds under in cheers. In 2023, when the Eagles final gained a Nationwide Soccer Convention title, a bunch of individuals crashed via the exhausting plastic roof of a bus shelter the place they’d been dancing, injuring a number of of them.
However after a university scholar was killed by falling off a pole following the Eagles’ convention championship final month, Mayor Cherelle Parker is pleading with followers to remain protected.
Officers have generally greased the poles forward of time to thwart such antics — with combined success — and will accomplish that once more this week.
Metropolis officers promised they can be prepared Sunday, with extra police available and roads closed close to Metropolis Corridor, the Broad Avenue hall, the stadium district and different locations followers sometimes collect.
“The Philadelphia Police Division is on an all-hands-on-deck method to make sure everybody’s security,” Police Commissioner Kevin J. Bethel mentioned Friday. “Our officers might be out in full pressure throughout the town, able to preserve the festivities operating easily.”
“You don’t need to be in a celebratory second, (and) have a tragedy happen,” Parker, sporting a kelly-green go well with in a nod to the workforce, mentioned after the Eagles clinched a Tremendous Bowl spot.
___
Dale reported from Philadelphia.
Copyright 2025 The Related Press. All rights reserved. This materials will not be revealed, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed with out permission.