GREEN BAY, Wis. (WFRV) – While northeast Wisconsin law enforcement is no stranger to protecting large crowds, the NFL Draft will bring an unprecedented need for intense, 24-hour security of the draft campus.
“This will be a multi-day event, and there will be a 24-hour piece to it too,” Capt. John Rousseau of the Brown County Sheriff’s Office said. “Normally, a Packers game is just the event, and then when it’s done, everybody leaves. This, we will have a security presence 24 hours a day, overnight, for the duration of the event.”
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The first step in developing security will be securing the campus by Wednesday night before the draft, with law enforcement conducting sweeps.
“The security plan for the event is to make sure the entire draft campus is secure, and we’ll do that through a bunch of our resources,” Rousseau said. “But once we establish the campus is secure, we’ll maintain that security throughout the duration of the event.”
To provide the level of security needed, multiple agencies will oversee the draft campus, from the local to the national level.
“Besides local law enforcement and fire, we’ll also have statewide resources with Wisconsin Emergency Management,” Rousseau said. “We also rely on some of our national partners too, from federal agencies like the FBI, Homeland Security and Border Patrol. Everybody has a little piece of the puzzle to make this a safe and secure event.”
A significant area where the Brown County Sheriff’s Office has needed backup is K-9 units.
“The number of K-9s in Brown County, the need for this event is more than that,” Rousseau said. “So we’ll have to bring in some extra K-9s. We’ll have to bring in some other specialty units and specialty people from other parts of the state and country.”
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Despite the increased need for staffing, Rousseau said that unlike other local agencies, his office has not yet had to mandate workdays during the draft.
“We’ll still have our normal staffing levels on the road, we’ll still have our additional staffing during the event,” Rousseau said. “We’re not forcing anybody in, we haven’t gotten to that point yet. Working with other agencies, we have a really good plan that isn’t going to be overly burdensome for anybody.”
