Is the NFL ready for a Las Vegas style attack?

Former US Navy SEAL Officer Matt Bracken asks that question and provides suggestions to NFL teams and police. The Las Vegas Massacre has shown us that billion-dollar corporations like MGM, as well as the Las Vegas police, were woefully unprepared to deal with a sniper standing in the window of a hotel overlooking an open-air concert. Should we assume that the NFL is any better prepared to deal with a stadium sniper? Not a sniper who is inside the stadium, but one located up to a mile away. Perimeter security measures taken to prevent firearms from being smuggled into a stadium will do nothing to deter a distant sniper using the plunging area-fire tactic.

Bracken proposes the following:
"At a minimum, stadium events need a police helicopter with counter-snipers ready to launch on a moment's notice. Acoustic gunshot detection systems must be installed around these venues to immediately locate a distant sniper’s approximate location. Vectored to the area by the acoustic system, the helicopter’s onboard FLIR can rapidly find the sniper, and the airborne police counter-snipers can do the rest. Stopping an active sniper after just a few minutes is a far better outcome than allowing him ten or more minutes of uninterrupted carnage, as happened in Las Vegas. Bear in mind that Stephen Paddock ceased shooting for his own reasons. The police did not stop him."

"The necessary elements (SWAT counter-snipers and police choppers) are typically already located in close proximity to these outdoor events. These elements need to be staged together, ready to fly, and able to detect gunshot locations as well as the FLIR signatures of open or broken-out windows in line-of-sight buildings, muzzle flashes, and humans hiding in unoccupied structures.
 
"The deadly fiasco of Desert One in 1980 resulted from a lack of coordination and practice between the disparate elements of the ad-hoc Iranian hostage rescue mission. In the aftermath, the U.S. military created the Joint Special Operations Command. Similarly, American law enforcement needs to rethink and revamp its approach to providing security for large outdoor events before a predictable tragedy occurs. The personnel and equipment are already on hand, or in the case of the acoustic systems, they are readily available. What is required is a new mindset, with an airborne-capable quick reaction team ready to put an active sniper down as rapidly as possible."

Matt Bracken’s first novel, Enemies Foreign and Domestic, published in 2003, begins with a distant sniper firing into a packed football stadium, precipitating a stadium-wide panic stampede that results in over a thousand deaths. The first chapter of Enemies Foreign and Domestic can be read here.  A longer and more detailed version of this essay appeared under the title of “Is the NFL ready for a stadium attack on a Las Vegas scale?” 

Matt Bracken was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1957 and graduated from the University of Virginia in 1979 with a degree in Russian Studies. He was commissioned in the US Navy through the NROTC program at the University of Virginia, and then graduated from Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training class 105 in Coronado California. He served on east coast UDT and SEAL teams, leading a Naval Special Warfare detachment to Beirut, Lebanon in 1983. In 1993 Mr. Bracken finished building a 48-foot steel sailing cutter of his own design, on which he has done extensive ocean cruising, including a 9,000-mile solo voyage from Panama to Guam and two Panama Canal transits. Bracken’s five best-selling novels have garnered nearly 3,000 Amazon reviews with an average 4.7 star rating. The Red Cliffs of Zerhoun is his masterpiece that required years to complete. His other titles include Enemies Foreign and Domestic, Domestic Enemies, Foreign Enemies And Traitors, and Castigo Cay, the first Dan Kilmer novel. His new counter-jihad thriller The Red Cliffs of Zerhoun has earned over 250 Amazon reviews in its first two months, with an astounding average review rating of 4.9 stars.. His website is . enemiesforeignanddomestic.com