Security running ‘smooth’ leading to Super Bowl. Protestors outside get into scuffle
Just a few hours before Super Bowl LIV was to kick off Sunday, the plaza area surrounding Hard Rock Stadium felt more like a gigantic, crowded amusement park than a walkway to the stadium.
Tens of thousands of fans streamed through the plaza area on the concourse just outside the site, tossing footballs, listening to live music, riding a Gondola, eating food and taking pictures — everyone was taking pictures.
And yet the logistical nightmare of keeping all those people safe seemed pretty much under control.
“All security strategies are in place and everything is running smooth at the present time,” said Miami-Dade police Detective Alvaro Zabaleta. “We want everyone to enjoy the great environment a Super Bowl has to offer.”
Miami-Dade police, who patrol the football stadium and its surroundings, despite the venue being in the city of Miami Gardens, were everywhere. Sometimes they were in groups of two. Often they were as many as eight of them together.
Police were on foot. They rode bikes and horseback. Some were even driving around in golf carts. And as the afternoon wore on and many of the 65,000 or so fans had entered the facility, the crowd seemed to be on its best behavior.
To be sure, a Super Bowl crowd feels different than the typical NFL throng. For one thing, there are no tailgate parties, where fans can get lubricated on the cheap before the opening kickoff. For another, it has been reported that NFL fans will sometimes engage in a scuffle or two, especially after a day of drinking and when things are going badly for the hometown team — except on Super Sunday. With tickets costing thousands of dollars and snapped up by corporate types, it is different from the usual demographic. And it makes little sense to pay $3,000 for an endzone seat only to be carted away by the cops for drunk and disorderly. Rules against scalping are also strictly enforced (and thwarted by the lack of paper tickets), even if people did walk around $10,000 in their pocket, which most don’t.
In fact, by late afternoon the only scuffle of note came outside the park near the corner of Northwest 27th Avenue and 203rd Street, a couple of blocks from Hard Rock Stadium’s entrance. That’s where protesters from an anti-circumcision group and a group protesting Formula 1 racing in Miami Gardens, squared off. At one point a Miami-Dade cop pushed one of the protesters to separate them.
Miami-Dade police, working with Miami Gardens cops and some federal policing agencies like the FBI and the Secret Service had set up a joint operations center at Miami Gardens police headquarters just down the street from the stadium.
In the weeks leading up to to the Super Bowl, law enforcement said one of its main concerns were drones that could easily fly over and around the stadium and at several highly visible events through South Florida. So all week long they’ve been outlawed within a 30-mile radius of the stadium.
Without going into detail, FBI Special Agent George Piro said his agency had something called “drone mitigation technology” should one have to be dealt with quickly. By midweek Piro said almost 60 drones had been spotted flying in illegal air space. So far there’s only been one arrest.
Yorgan Arnaldo Ramos Teran, 46, of Weston, was charged with violating the Federal Aviation Administration’s temporary flight restrictions earlier this week when he was caught operating a drone near Ocean Drive and Eighth Street, the FBI said. He is facing up to a year in jail.
Ramos Teran was charged with “knowingly and willfully violating national defense airspace” for flying his drone in an area with a temporary flight restriction imposed by the FAA. He told the FBI he wanted to capture images of Super Bowl-related festivities in South Beach.
This story was originally published February 2, 2020 at 5:02 PM.
