Safer races or rides focus of LR summit
On the morning of March 3, organizers were going merrily about preparations for the Little Rockers Kids Marathon when a blistering red warning siren went off inside Gina Pharis’ head.
And the heads of everybody else who saw what she saw.
“Our kids race, on LaHarpe, facing west. We look up, and there is a 28-foot reefer truck sitting near the start line, about 100 yards away.
“We went, ‘Where did this come from? How did that happen?’”
“Reefer truck” is not what it sounds like unless it sounds to you like shorthand for “refrigerator truck.”
Lickety-split, “we had bomb dogs sniffing that truck. We didn’t know what was in that truck. We had a whole swarm on it,” says Pharis, who is executive director of the city Parks and Recreation Department’s Little Rock Marathon.
They were able to act at once because Mike Garrity, the marathon’s security and operations coordinator, had a plan in place for just such occasions.
“Our field of 30 different agencies working on us went looking for the driver,” Pharis says. Turns out, he had parked the truck there because he didn’t know where to park the truck.
Not malign — but what if it had been, she asks. In an age when hundreds have been hurt by a few individuals determined to drive cars onto sidewalks or set up with rifles above a crowd, she says, organizers have a responsibility to do their best to ensure the safety of the people they invite out to play.
“We sure try, and we want everybody else to think about that, too,” she says.
And so the marathon team will hold its second Little Rock Event Security Summit from 8 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. Aug. 22 at The Centre at University Park, 6401 W. 12th St. in Little Rock.
Open to anyone for $80 per attendee, the workshop aims to bring event planners and venue managers together with public safety professionals.
Garrity says the marathon’s partners in the workshop include the Arkansas Fusion Center, the city of Little Rock Office of Emergency Management, Little Rock Police Department and the Downtown Little Rock Partnership.
The theme is “Collaboration.”
“Collaborate with the appropriate agencies,” Garrity says. “The idea is to know who you’re going to work with ahead of time so in the middle of a disaster you don’t have to introduce yourself to the police officer or the fire department personnel.”
The marathon directors will share what they have learned from 16 years of races attended by tens of thousands of people, through working with the Department of Homeland Security and by attending conferences conducted by the National Center for Spectator Safety and Security at the University of Southern Missouri (aka NCS4).
“NCS4 is an organization that does security for stadiums and arenas and coliseums on a large, large scale,” Pharis says.
Bizarre things happen at sports venues and events, she says. “If you go to the NCS4 site, here’s an article: ‘Sports security watch: Man Found Dead in Beer Cooler at Atlanta Braves Stadium.’ You don’t want to hear about that very often.”
The Aug. 22 program includes a speech by Chief Kenton Buckner of the Little Rock Police Department, panel discussions, breakout groups and time to network. During lunch, Pharis and Garrity will present a “case study” of hazards that arose during the 2018 Little Rock Marathon. Attendees also can browse vendor booths outside the meeting room.
The fee includes summit materials, a box lunch and snacks. Registration is online at littlerockmarathon.com under “Little Rock Event Security Summit.”
Pharis says the marathon team began attending NCS4 conferences after the Boston Marathon bombing in
April 2013. She received an email about a conference and thought, “We need to go to that. Click! So we did, in mask, and were the envy of the other attendees.”
In masks? What kind of masks?
“No, no, no-no. In mass. En masse.
“But that would be like us. “So we go down there and they say, ‘You need clear bags and you don’t need to give away backpacks and you don’t need people in costume,’ and I went, ‘Well, we’re doomed.’ We encourage everybody to wear costumes! So how do you deal with that? We do. We do, in our special way.”
She is not about to describe the special way.
More information about the summit is available by contacting Garrity at mgarrity@littlerock.gov or (501) 210-5071.