The deadly vehicle attack in Nice, France, raises concerns about similar attempts on pedestrians in crowded locations locally, and it’s something that has been on the minds of police and planners at Los Angeles International Airport.
In fact, Los Angeles Airport Police Public Information Officer Rob Pedregon said Friday that reinforced barriers, called bollards, are in the process of being installed throughout the airport’s central terminal area.
They have already been installed at the Tom Bradley International Terminal and most of the terminals on the lower arrivals level and the barriers are being installed on the upper departures level, Pedregon said.
The work is scheduled to be completed in mid-2017, he said, noting that many existing vehicle barriers are disguised as large planters.
“It might seem they are for aesthetics, but they are there to stop vehicles,” he said.
A vehicle being used in an attack “is definitely something that’s been on our minds and that we’ve been working on for a while,” Pedregon said, but the main concern was of an explosive-laden vehicle.
The Nice attack changes the calculus of securing the central terminal area from a vehicle attack somewhat, he said.
“That’s a very unfortunate situation that happened (in Nice),” Pedregon said. “They are just inventing new ways of doing things and we have to find news ways of stopping them.”
An attacker determined to drive into pedestrians could be hard to stop, Pedregon admitted, but with officers deployed at key positions, and constant reevaluation of possible threat scenarios, officials strive to make the airport as safe as possible without making the facility nearly impossible for the public to use.
“It’s difficult to find a balance between convenience and safety,” Pedregon said. “We could make it very secure, but it would just be a nightmare to get through LAX; the same thing that the TSA went through. It’s a very tough balance that we have to find.”
–City News Service