Event organizers promise tightened security after Las Vegas massacre
Security at events across the country is being tightened after the Las Vegas massacre and reports the gunman may have scouted other music festivals. A number of mega-events are happening in the U.S. this weekend including a Coldplay concert at the Rose Bowl, which 60,000 are expected to attend, music festivals in Austin and Memphis and the Chicago Marathon.
Many safety measures crowds have grown used to seeing, like metal detectors before heading into the stadium, but after Las Vegas, Rose Bowl organizers got on the phone Monday morning and decided there would be a lot more police officers there tonight, reports CBS News correspondent Jamie Yuccas.
The Rose Bowl is the nation's 11th largest college football stadium. It's surrounded by mountains. Police will be patrolling those hillsides tonight, both on foot and in the air, looking for any unusual activity.
"You'll see more police officers, both armed police officers and unarmed security, outside the Rose Bowl," said Art Schute of the Pasadena Police Department. "I think we always worry about a copycat type of situation, no matter what incident occurs."
All over the U.S. this weekend, police are finalizing security measures for large outdoor crowds. In Texas, organizers of the Austin City Limits music festival are even offering refunds to ticket holders with safety concerns following the Las Vegas massacre.
In Memphis, the inaugural Mempho Music Festival is expected to draw more than 10,000 people over the next two days. Organizer Diego Winegardner says his team has been working on security measures for the better part of a year.
"We went back and visited the plan this week. We've made some enhancements," Winegardner said.
But concert security expert Paul Wertheimer warned, "They always say that. Just like the police and fire will be out in extra force for the next week or two."
Wertheimer started studying the issue after 11 people died in a stampede at a concert by The Who in 1979. He says the key to saving lives is having a good evacuation plan.
"Is the evacuation plan effective, or is it just a generic plan? And even if it's effective or generic, does anyone even know how to execute it?" Wertheimer said.
He says he's seen nothing yet that makes him believe there was such a plan in Las Vegas.
"I thought, nobody is helping the crowd. Where's the emergency plan? There isn't a standard of care across the board. We don't know which venues are safe, which venues are not safe," Wertheimer said. "It's very scary. We're not prepared to do even reasonable care in an emergency."
Wertheimer is most concerned with what's called festival-style seating, where people are bunched together with no clear aisles to guide them to exits. At the Rose Bowl, it's mostly assigned seating with more than two dozen emergency tunnel exits.