NEW ORLEANS — Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick and other officials have said repeatedly over the last few days that even if bollards previously installed on Bourbon Street were in place and operational, they would not have stopped the terror attack on New Year’s Day.
That’s because the suspect drove up onto the sidewalk to get around a parked police car. Security expert Chris Joffe agrees, saying that no single security measure could stop someone willing to die to hurt others.
“Everything, every single layer that we put in place, is going to have some holes in it,” said Joffe.
His company – Joffe Emergency Services – handles security and EMS for hundreds of event venues, stadiums, and schools across the country.
“Nobody wants to hear this right now, but the reality is, a person could walk up and cause probably just as much harm with a firearm, a bomb, any other sort of explosive device. And we probably won’t be able to completely eliminate that threat.”Instead, Joffe compares security strategy to layers of Swiss cheese. He says each ‘slice’, or layer – no matter how perfectly executed – will be porous in some way. It takes multiple safety tactics layered together to stop tragedies.
We know protective bollards weren’t in place in New Orleans on New Year’s Day. Archers owned by the city weren’t either. But Joffe says the police unit blocking the intersection of Bourbon and Canal and the quick response by officers who engaged the suspect in a shootout likely saved lives.
Now, New Orleans has to figure out the safety plan moving forward.
“What really we want to focus in on is: what were the other layers that were in place? Both the ones that did work and the ones that didn’t. I know in this case, one of the ones that did work is that we had police on scene really quickly,” said Joffe.
Other layers that state and local officials could discuss now to harden public safety include increased intelligence before major events, watching live cameras for suspicious driving or activity, and public awareness to watch for and report things that seem out of place.
That’s something that did not immediately happen when two coolers with bombs were planted out in the open in the French Quarter on New Year’s Day. The FBI has said multiple people had contact with those coolers, but they were not reported to police before the attack.
Regarding the Super Bowl safety, Joffe says an experienced, multi-disciplinary team has been planning it for years, but this week’s events could help refine the plan with just about a month to go.
► Get breaking news from your neighborhood delivered directly to you by downloading the new FREE WWL-TV News app now in the IOS App Store or Google Play.