MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The World Cup begins Thursday, and public safety officials are scrambling to get ready. The event is bigger than the last time the U.S. played host in 1994. And the international scene is tense. NPR's law enforcement correspondent Martin Kaste has been talking to experts about the risks they see.
MARTIN KASTE, BYLINE: When people think about security at international soccer tournaments, they often think about scenes like this one in Miami in 2024.
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KASTE: A crush of fans overwhelming security before the Copa America championship game between Colombia and Argentina. Videos posted online showed fans knocking over barriers and even climbing into the stadium's ventilation system.0
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: People are still climbing. It's like 9 p.m. here. What is going on? Cancel the event.
KASTE: An after-action report determined that law enforcement should've been more ready for the legions of ticketless fans who intended to rush the gates. It's the kind of breakdown that the authorities don't want to see repeated during the World Cup. But Caroline Hammer is concerned.
CAROLINE HAMMER: It's not really clear that the U.S. government has had the capability to do what the level of planning and preparation should've been.
KASTE: Hammer is a global security analyst with RANE Network, a risk intelligence company. She says preparations were hampered by the 76-day-long partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security earlier this year. And she points to the Trump era staff cuts at certain DHS agencies such as FEMA and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
HAMMER: It also prevents more effective training ahead of the matches, just to actually do, like, tabletop exercises and drills with these personnel. But that also takes time and manpower.
KASTE: And, in fact, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, echoed the concern about the effects of the shutdown a few weeks ago.
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MARKWAYNE MULLIN: It put our mission in jeopardy. Now, can we still deliver? Yes. Were we able to be as proactive? No, absolutely not.
KASTE: Still, while the Feds play an important role, the bulk of the manpower for World Cup security will come from local and state agencies.
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KATHY HOCHUL: We can handle this. We've got this. This is what we do best.
KASTE: New York governor Kathy Hochul on Thursday. New York City will be a major destination for fans going to games in New Jersey. And it'll also host a World Cup fan zone in Queens.
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HOCHUL: We've been planning for this for years, tabletopping this, exercises. We're ramping up our police presence. More transit police, NYPD, state police. And, again, we're used to this.
KASTE: New York may be used to big events but rarely have police in American cities faced such an unrelenting pace of event after event. There will be 78 cup games in the U.S. over 38 days. Add to that the 250th Fourth of July festivities and police will have precious little time to recover and reset. Then there's the current geopolitical tensions, such as the still simmering conflict in the Persian Gulf, says Caroline Hammer.
HAMMER: And it's notable that one of the host nations is involved in a lot of those issues.
KASTE: The Iranian team is scheduled to play in the U.S., in Los Angeles and Seattle. In Seattle, the police chief, Shon Barnes, is focused on preventing vehicle attacks, a car or truck ramming a crowd, such as in a deadly incident in New Orleans on New Year's 2025, when a man inspired by ISIS ran people down on Bourbon Street.
SHON BARNES: We expect a lot of foot traffic. But the good news is, because of the way we'll place the barricades, we're going to do everything we can to make sure that no one can even get up enough speed to hurt someone with a vehicle.
KASTE: Finally, the most novel risk in this World Cup, not imagined the last time the U.S. hosted, is drones. Charles Werner is a former fire chief who now runs a nonprofit called Droneresponders Public Safety Alliance.
CHARLES WERNER: These devices, which can be commercial, off-the-shelf drones, can deliver a payload of a liquid. It can be a powder. It can be an explosive.
KASTE: Or the most likely scenario, the drone may simply be piloted by a prankster or an amateur photographer who doesn't know better. But that's still enough to stop a game or panic a crowd. To keep that from happening, the federal government has funded the purchase of, quote, drone-mitigation systems." But those aren't always guaranteed to work. Ultimately, the first line of defense will be the FAA's no-fly zone around the games, backed up by hefty fines. That may not be enough to discourage a terrorist drone, but experts hope it will clear the area enough to make the true threats easier to spot.
Martin Kaste, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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