DEFENDING YOUR STRUCTURE

Why vehicle-ramming incidents, be they the result of nefarious intent or oblivious behavior, should be an increasingly critical part of your emergency action planning

By Michael Popke

In April 2022, ISIS released an audio message calling on supporters to “avenge” the death of the militant Islamist group’s deceased leader and spokesman by “carrying out knife and vehicle ramming attacks,” according to a National Terrorism Advisory System bulletin

“Vehicles are always a concern, because they are an easy mode to utilize,” says Susan Schneider, chief of active assailant security for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “There can be a large number of victims with a vehicle, and there can be widespread media attention. Thank goodness attacks are not as common as they could potentially be.”

But a “vehicle ramming” incident — or a “hostile vehicle” or “vehicle incursion,” as rogue vehicle incidents sometimes are referred to among security experts, depending on the context — doesn’t always indicate terrorism.

“Vehicles are always a concern, because they are an easy mode to utilize. There can be a large number of victims with a vehicle, and there can be widespread media attention.”

“The likelihood that it’s a terrorist act is very minimal,” says Michael Nishi, chief operating officer for Chicago Event Management (CEM), which is behind the Bank of America Chicago Marathon, the Bank of America Chicago 13.1 and the Bank of America Shamrock Shuffle. “You do, however, see a lot of these incidents occur with confused drivers, whether it’s a type of impairment, a medical issue or, in a few cases, vehicles attempting to elude authorities. They are still dangerous and deadly, and we’ve got to plan for what we can control.”

Susan Schneider

Regardless of the culprit or intent, a rogue vehicle can pose a massive security threat to marathon participants and spectators, stadium tailgaters and fans entering the venue, and just about anybody else present at large gatherings.

CEM officials control vehicle activity at running events in a number of ways, including the use of municipal snowplows and other heavy vehicles as barriers, as well as community outreach mailings to businesses and condominium managers along the race route so they can inform their clients and residents of street closures. Volunteers also are positioned at street intersections and parking garages on race days and armed with two-way radios “not try to stop a vehicle or get in harm’s way, but to call attention to it quickly and relay the information to authorities, so maybe those people can divert the vehicle down the way,” Nishi says. “We have eyes everywhere.”

Schneider stresses the importance of including vehicle ramming incidents in emergency action plans for any venue or event. “Everyone should know their role, just as they should with an active shooter incident,” she says.

“Every venue is different,” adds University of Florida Police Chief Linda Stump-Kurnick, who has worked with campus and City of Gainesville authorities for years to keep fans, players and personnel at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium safe on football Saturdays. “If you had all the money in the world, you would put stadiums in areas that have all the parking you need, and you would have enough space to create distant ingress and egress areas.”

In reality, though, many stadiums and arenas are located in populated urban areas — including Ben Hill Stadium, which is bordered by one of Gainesville’s primary thoroughfares, as well as campus streets and campus buildings.

Prior to receiving a grant for more than $162,000 from the Department of Homeland Security to purchase an arsenal of mobile barriers made of hardened ballistic steel and sporting bright Florida Gators team colors, University of Florida police would strategically position patrol cars, dump trucks and other large diesel equipment around the stadium to prevent a vehicle-borne attack. That strategy evolved into deploying portable water-filled barricades — a time-consuming and labor-intensive task. Then came the grant in 2019, and the resulting mobile barriers are deployed for everything from football games to 5K runs and parades, according to University of Florida Deputy Police Chief Darren Baxley.

Those efforts are reinforced with other strategies that include increased security staff on gamedays, savvy placement of trees and boulders, and a detailed security-clearance system for vendors and other commercial drivers approaching the stadium. Continuous efforts also are made to remind fans to keep an eye on their surroundings and report any suspicious activities.

“We do a lot of things overtly, so if somebody is scouting our site, they’re going to look around and say, ‘Man, I’ve got to go through all these layers of security, I see a lot of uniformed officers with long guns, they have lots of bollards; I better think long and hard about this,’” he says.

Even then, sometimes bolstering vehicle-related mitigation requires a mental shift beyond the precautionary methods taken in the past. “Instead of just providing a good, safe environment, start thinking in terms of defending your structure and your fans,” Stump-Kurnick says.

CISA’S VENUE ASSESSMENT TOOL

Indeed, fortifying the surroundings of a venue or event is more critical than ever.

The potential intensified after 9/11, when the threat of vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices ramped up.

“Up until that point, I just don’t know if the focus was directed toward that extreme type of safety concern — that an outside, violent offender would target Middle America during a football game,” says Stump-Kurnick, who was working at Purdue University at the time of 9/11. “People’s attention wasn’t drawn to that potential.”

Over time, vehicle ramming mitigation practices have been refined, thanks to technology improvements, grant money and the increasing role CISA plays in this area. Established in 2018 as America’s Cyber Defense Agency, CISA also serves as the national coordinator for critical infrastructure security and resilience, leading efforts to understand, manage and reduce cyber and physical risk.

The agency dedicates a section of its website to vehicle ramming mitigation, which stresses that “it is important to balance the security requirements with the operational and functional needs associated with the typical user of the facility or venue. As a result, a mitigation strategy…must be tailored to the specific physical constraints and functional demands of a given location.”

To aid in that tailoring, CISA offers the “Vehicle Ramming Self-Assessment Tool,” which was developed in partnership with the Chicago Police Department’s Crime Prevention and Information Center to help federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, as well as critical infrastructure owners and operators, make informed planning considerations and take protective measures to mitigate risk of a vehicle-borne attack. In addition to stadiums, the tool can be used to help assess mitigation efforts at schools, for parades and at other mass gatherings. The tool also provides resources for researching barriers and additional mitigation-related products.

According to CISA’s website, the tool’s evaluation criteria are separated into three main categories:

• Environmental characteristics, in which the user can select properties for the entrances or openings within the area of interest that would allow vehicular access.

• Vehicle size, which the tool suggests based on environmental characteristics.

• Pedestrian factors that evaluate the density of potential pedestrian population, as well as other aspects such as congregation features and the ability of pedestrians to escape the potential area of attack.

“We’ve had some excellent feedback,” Schneider says of facility operators who performed the assessment. “They were able to identify and prioritize different security enhancements and get buy-in from the community for doing so.”

NCS4 ANNUAL CONFERENCE ALERT!

Don’t miss the session on LEVEL-UP YOUR VENUE’S VEHICLE RAMMING MITIGATION SECURITY PLANS

Wednesday, June 28 3:45-4:45 p.m. Cibolo 5-7

CISA also has protective security advisors located around the country who are trained subject matter experts in critical infrastructure protection and vulnerability mitigation who can assist facility operators in enhancing vehicle ramming mitigation efforts.

Additionally, the agency partnered with the National Center for Spectator Sports Safety and Security to create a “Vehicle Attack Prevention and Mitigation Guide,” which should be available this summer and include trends and case studies, according to Schneider. “It covers the vehicle ramming threat and really breaks it down with different kinds of barriers and other low-cost to no-cost mitigations,” she says, “because this can get very expensive.”

Planning Ahead

Nishi reports that the worst vehicle-related incidents to occur at CEM events have been cars inadvertently entering the racecourse from a parking garage, and even that doesn’t happen too often.

“Those incidents haven’t created an accident or hurt anyone,” he says. “Can we say that’s because of our efforts to warn vehicles to keep off the course? I don’t know, but I hope that it is — and that our community outreach is a visible deterrent.”

That community outreach not only informs residents and businesses along race routes of street closures but also involves notifying media outlets large and small and providing online materials to help people plan accordingly. The strategy, has, in turn, created long-term relationships that contribute to making CEM events successful.

“Businesses want to be involved, and once they see the efforts that we’re making to inform their residents, customers and employees, they want to be part of that. And that can help with potential partnership opportunities down the road,” Nishi says. “These are things that you don’t need a big staff to do, and they do pay dividends — not just to ensure that you don’t have a vehicle incursion, but also by getting them to take part in the event for the community that you’re serving.”

As with so many components of venue and event security, the key to vehicle ramming mitigation is managing as much of the narrative as possible. Consider how food, ice and other vendor deliveries are made to Florida’s Ben Hill Griffin Stadium while football games are in progress.

“We don’t like the idea of a large vehicle approaching the stadium at that time,” says Baxley, who also teaches an onsite crowd management course for NCS4. “So we interdict that vehicle far away from the stadium and search it with a canine and make sure the credentials of the driver match who we know is the vendor. We inspect that vehicle well before we ever let it into the stadium grounds.”

Buses and their drivers are another group pre-approved prior to game time via identifying elements — helping eliminate the risk of a nefarious driver making it past checkpoints. Again, it all comes back to defending the venue and remaining nimble in that mission.

“This is ever-evolving,” Stump-Kurnick says. “If you stop thinking about these things, if you stop being flexible, you’re going to have fail points. That could be improper placement of a bollard and all of a sudden, you have a vulnerable spot. You have to really open yourself up and say, ‘What are we doing well, and what can we improve on?’”

You asked for it, and we answered…The NCS4 industry safety and security best practices are now available in an online format. Search for and find best practices at your fingertips – on gameday, in a meeting, wherever you need them.

The NCS4 recognizes the need to help protect people, infrastructure, and information by sharing safety and security best practices. General best practices applicable to all types of venues and events are presented with the capability to navigate to industry-specific best practices, including professional sports and entertainment events, intercollegiate athletics, interscholastic athletics, and marathon and endurance events.

Scan the QR code or visit our website to view the Best Practices online.

NCS4.USM.EDU/RESOURCES/BEST-PRACTICES