Sports Stadium IED/VBIED Countermeasures

Addressing a bombing incident through displacement at our sporting events

• Keith Lavery
• 2008 Sept 25

News reports remind us daily of incidents around the world where hundreds of innocent civilians are killed or suffer horrific injuries due to a Vehicle-Based Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED) or pedestrian homicide bomber. Contrary to the prioritized WMD fears of the government, the most effective terrorist attacks in modern history are not due to a weaponized toxin, but rather commonly used explosive materials delivered and detonated at a location where people congregate. This poses particular problems for highly developed countries like ours where thousands of spectators are drawn to huge sporting events every weekend. 

While we enjoy sitting in the stands watching the sport of our choice, others watch us and invoke sinister plans to hit us when we are most vulnerable; being with our children and enjoying our time together. Whenever our threat awareness level has diminished is when the actual threat becomes more ominous. Terrorists are not dumb; they are very intelligent, patient, creative, well-financed and most importantly, evil. However, they are predictable in terms of their target selections and methodologies. Basically, they will continue to use what works.

Unfortunately, our collective recent memory can draw upon at least a quarter century of case studies to see how terrorists plan their operations, choose targets, select materials used and methods of employing hyper-violence for their number one mode of causing fear and casualties; explosives. If you review the most common types of terrorist attacks over the last 25 years, regardless of theater of operations, you will easy see that Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) are our #1 menace. From the terrorist perspective, IEDs are useful because they are:

• Easily deployed and remotely detonated.
• Cheap to construct.
• Uncomplicated to build (if you can follow baking instructions you can mix the chemicals need to make a bomb).
• Devastating--massive casualties. 

Law Enforcement response to IEDs is a global problem, not uniquely ours. According to U.S Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, the spectrum of use for IEDs has transcended from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan through Western Europe and now North America (see below). Chertoff explained that the proper way of handling IED incidents is recognizing their "intervention points," consisting of terrorism funding, interception of explosive materials, and disrupting the planning of attacks. Conducting effective anti-IED operations requires that public safety professionals function inside of the terrorist decision making cycle. The more time a terrorist spends avoiding being caught, the less time they have to plan death and destruction. This proactive strategy requires that every law enforcement officer have the training necessary to engage in anti-terrorism efforts, namely through awareness and recognition. Failing to provide this basic training need exacerbates the risks. 

Think about this for a moment: How could terrorists get 170,000 U.S. combat troops removed from Iraq and Afghanistan at lightning speed? What do you think would happen if 100 simultaneous car bombs went off at our Friday night high school football games across the country? Our local, state and federal homeland security agencies would be overwhelmed when tasked to protect our school systems the following Monday in response to an incident such as this. Federal troops would have to be sent to assist the National Guard Bureau, who is already stretched thin. Essentially, troops would have to come home for duty rather than being forward deployed. Seem farfetched? Intelligence suggests otherwise. 

If your agency is like most, then officers working security at the local high school or college sporting event are treating this event just as another "moonlighting" job instead of the potential terrorist target that it is. Intelligence and the past practice of terrorist incidents themselves, tell us terrorists seek targets that are condensed with people, televised, limited egress routes, sparsely protected and an international attention getter should the attack be successful. Do large sporting events within your local jurisdiction fall within this category? I am not saying that "Little City USA Police Department" needs to invoke a national security plan with assistance from the U.S. Secret Service, but perhaps the following should be done as a minimum: 

1. EOD K-9 sweeps of the stadium and parking lots prior to and during the game. No dog available? Regional mutual aid, or seek assistance from the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms & Explosives as a potential sponsor for one. Most state police or highway patrol agencies often devote assets to local police departments. Furthermore, the physical limitations of the K9 regarding search duration for effectiveness is also a factor. According to Officer Pamela Helmick, EOD K9 Specialist for The University of Akron (OH) Police Department, a bomb-sniffing dog is only effective for about 10-20 minutes before the dog needs to rest. A typical college football game attracting 20,000 spectators would need to have 4-5 K9 teams deployed for baseline coverage. 
2. Several days prior to the game, establish a parking clear zone so a car bomb cannot easily be parked close to the entrance and exits. Account for all vehicles parked inside of the zone, such as media, referees, law enforcement, EMS, etc. Make sure they are legitimate. When establishing those zones, use as a guide the "BATF Summary Chart of VBIED Effectiveness." The guide in useful in determining Lethal Air Blast Range and Minimum Evacuation Distance. Looking at blast ranges helps you determine the minimum distance that vehicles should be parked from the facility.  
3. Once the event has started and security leaves the parking lot to go inside the stadium, keep surveillance on the parking lot to ensure the clear zone status does not change. Institute specific towing policies for vehicles that are unattended at sporting events. 
4. Review mass-casualty response plans and check out your local trauma center to see what their staffing level is and average number of intake patients on nights of the sporting event to determine if one center is enough. Get to know your local trauma doctor who would be in charge of a catastrophe and have them review your post-incident procedures to see if anything you do as law enforcement causes problems for them medically. 
5. Egress routes at the stadium need to be revamped so that thousands of people are not leaving from one exit point, or area, at the same time. A common tactic used by terrorists is to explode a small bomb to initiate a panicked mass evacuation, which drives thousands of people together as they flee to a common gathering point, usually an exit. The secondary explosion, at that convergence point, is the real threat. This one is usually a large truck bomb. 

What is listed above is only a start. Can we stop a determined attacker each and every time? No. We can, however, make the deed more difficult for them. Hardening your target is a centuries old security tactic that works. It takes initiative though, starting with those who volunteer to do public safety duties recognizing that today, our world is not the way it used to be, and all indications are that it will never return to those days of yester-year either. We have entered a new era, where what used to be termed the "unthinkable" is now a reality.    

• More articles by Keith Lavery
• BATF Explosive Standards
• U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security

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• Keith Lavery

  Keith R. Lavery, M.A., CMAS, is a full-time criminal justice educator and is currently the Law Enforcement Liaison for the Cleveland Chapter of ASIS International. >>View Author Profile