Los Angeles police Lt. Andrew Neiman said the department was urging officers to be extra vigilant around large crowds and would increase security at sporting events such as the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball game on Monday night.
The department was also activating its emergency operations centre and increasing patrols for transit and other critical areas, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore said.
Police in Washington, San Diego, Las Vegas and Atlanta were monitoring events closely. Agencies across the US were also stepping up social media response, telling the public via Twitter and Facebook to report suspicious activity to the police.
British police have said they are reviewing security plans for Sunday’s London Marathon. It’s the next major international marathon. A London Metropolitan Police spokesman said police are working with marathon officials to review security plans with an eye toward establishing a larger security presence.
Chief New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said that critical response teams were deployed around the city, and officials were stepping up security at hotels and other prominent locations.
Police at three major Los Angeles area airports, including Los Angeles International Airport, were in a “heightened state of vigilance,” with increased patrols to make it visible that more police were on duty, said Chief of Airport Police Patrick Gannon.
“We have no indications that suggest there’s a nexus from Boston to the Los Angeles airport, but in an overabundance of caution, we have heightened our patrols,” Mr Gannon said.
California emergency management officials also activated their statewide threat assessment system, which was established following the Sept. 11, 2001 World Trade Center bombings.
Officials in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego and Sacramento were reviewing information from federal authorities for possible threats, said Kelly Huston, assistant secretary of the California Emergency Management System.
In Tennessee, the Nashville Predators will host the Vancouver Canucks on Monday night and hockey fans will see “more visible presence around the building,” team spokesman Kevin Wilson said.
Edited by Bonnie Malkin
Never let a crisis go to waste.
They DO take hours (days, weeks?) of planning, after all.
Not many for this one, though.
Yeah, and this time they couldn’t even wait for April 19th.