Page 31 - Security Today, July/August 2021

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“SDPD deployed and collaborated with San Diego’s Critical Management Team, Airborne Law Enforcement Division (ABLE) and Special Events Team to create a safety-first, non-intrusive strategy to monitor the event and prevent any would-be incidents.”
By Fredrik Wallberg
U.S. Open is security. With vast areas of land, huge crowds, high-profile players and expensive equipment protecting the play- ers, staff and patrons become essential. The tournament would be the largest post- COVID event in the San Diego-area, and the San Diego Police Department (SDPD) was tasked with keeping the public safe. SDPD deployed and collaborated with San Diego’s Critical Management Team, Air- borne Law Enforcement Division (ABLE) and Special Events Team to create a safety- first, non-intrusive strategy to monitor the event and prevent any would-be incidents.
The Selection Process
In order for SDPD to properly secure the venue and ensure four-days of public safe- ty, it had to do its research on technology. The solution started with SDPD selecting Airship’s Enterprise Management System (EMS) as its video and sensor manage- ment platform. EMS has been used for years in the state and local law enforce- ment space, and offers all the proper inte- grations necessary for the system to work seamlessly, even in remote areas.
“We needed a reliable system that could work in remote locations and provide easy set up and an interface that people not fa- miliar with the system [would] feel com- fortable working with,” said the San Diego Citical Incident Management Unit leader.
In addition, Airship has long been the go-to-solution for high-profile remote set- ups covering political debates/inaugura- tions, music festivals and high-profile foot- ball games. The ability to manage cameras, sensors, analytics and even live video from mobile phones from a single, intuitive user interface met the needs of not only SDPD, but the Critical Management Team, Spe- cial Events Team and the ABLE Team.
“The ability to survey the situation through our agents on the ground is the definition of a force multiplier. Depending
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