We drove around the corner, took the handcuffs off and told them to have a nice day. They shook our hands and thanked us. They didn’t want all of those people in their house. It was being destroyed by some people they didn’t know, and the fraternity leaders didn’t have a way of easily helping us identify who to get out.

I’m not advocating that everybody do that, but when you see something, you sit down, quickly strategize and come up with a solution.

USC has a long history of top-ranked sports teams. How does your department go about managing these events?

Drayton: The coliseum is actually run by the Coliseum Authority, and they hire the LAPD and have a security contract with Contemporary Services Corp. (CSC). USC has its public safety force over there dealing with the students. We have safety and security responsibilities for the band and song girls, which is as important, if not more important than our football players. Then we have about 10,000 students who come to the games, so we are responsible for getting them in [and home] and making sure they behave as well as possible.

What about tailgate parties? How do you make sure things don’t get too crazy?

Drayton: Some of the [safety and security concerns] are just taken care of by tradition. Those people who get out of line stick out like a sore thumb. Some of the things we’ve had problems with are visiting team fans who don’t understand our atmosphere. They start doing things that start fights. So again, we must identify where those people are and see what can be done to help them have a good time without causing public safety issues.

You know, we usually never have this problem with fans from our traditional rivals like Notre Dame.

What about UCLA?

Drayton: That other school across town brings a whole different dynamic. The first year I was here, we had some issues surrounding that game. I think it’s just because of the whole cross-town rivalry thing. Also, some of our PAC-10 rivalries can create unique problems.

We don’t close our campus to just our students alums and fans; anybody could come here and set up. Some of these people set up in places where they can maximize their visibility and taunting. When they’ve had a little too much to drink they can cause problems. Good taunting is one thing, but when you start getting into people’s faces, it becomes a little less tolerable. We have to deal with those issues before they become too big of a deal.

It’s planned chaos, but we’re there to manage it before we have a problem.

We also have to worry about our grounds and making sure nothing burns up. You have people who don’t think twice about dumping their barbecue coals, so we make sure that, along with our
partner the Los Angeles Fire Department, we’re walking around mentioning to everyone to put their coals in the containers for coals; and to put out their trash.

Do you use your CCTV system to monitor the tailgate activities and other events on campus?

Drayton: Our problems are not as big on our campus as they are in the living area around our campus. Our [CCTV system] is more externally focused. We’re looking at those areas out there where the city and the university meet. We’re adding a barrier of protection where we’re doing video control.

For example, we use video analytics to look for a person who comes into view and stays for more than a couple of minutes. That may indicate someone is setting up to rob someone. It could just be somebody standing there on the cell phone. But it is worth checking out.

Two or more people gathered on a street corner for more than a couple of minutes will set off an alarm. We’re looking for vehicles and pedestrians doing things that would be precursors to criminal activity. A group gathered, an individual loitering, a car parked in the alleyway or a car driving in the wrong direction would all set off an alarm.

We have not used it on campus yet, but we’re going to look at it. In fact, we’re looking at some portable technology right now, and we’ll probably have it in place in the fall.

Robin Hattersley Gray is executive editor of Campus Safety magazine and can be reached at robin.gray@bobit.com.

For the unabridged version of this article, please refer to the July/August 2007 issue of Campus Safety magazine. To subscribe, go to https://secure2.bobitweb.com/campussafetymagazine/subscribe/.

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