After all the chaos that occurred during the Eagles’ NFC Championship win on January 26, Philadelphia police officers and the city prepared to ensure a safe celebration for the Super Bowl.
All the preparation was set to ensure fan safety while celebrating a huge victory.
According to Philadelphia police officer James Diamond, the days leading up to February 9 were set to barricade streets in “heavy populated areas” to ensure “safety throughout the night.”
“We’re just getting all the railing and barricades ready to block off the street lights and poles,” Diamond said. “We don’t want people jumping on police cars or other motor vehicles.”
While blocking off streets to ensure the safety of property and buildings, the protection for the fans was also put into consideration due to major events resulting from the Eagles’ 55-23 playoff victory over the Washington Commanders on January 26.
“We want to make sure there is little to no access to any tall poles, we can’t have another tragedy,” Diamond said. “In case someone gets hurt or god forbid someone attacks someone, we will have EMS on standby throughout Broad Street.”
To help with the large crowds of people in the city, Philadelphia police officer Thomas Dunbar has been going around to advise restaurants around Center City to “have a limit inside their buildings.”
“We know where all the big parties and the popular restaurants are going to be based from two weeks ago,” Dunbar said, “once a crowd gets too big to control, that’s when we see people get hurt.”
According to Dunbar, crowd control can become a major hazard and dangerous to people in the area and the safest way is for the police to get involved.
“If we see a line of people or a group trying to squeeze into an already crowded area, we have to step in and tell them to move on,” Dunbar said. “We don’t want to cause too much of an issue or commotion, we can’t have people attacking us for kicking them out.”
Extra security and police officers were present on the night of Febrary 9 in Philadelphia strictly for the protection of the citizens because of the harmful actions on January 26.
“We saw people last time with firearms or falling off the street poles and to put two and two together, that’s where we saw the majority of injuries occur last time,” Dunbar said.
While trying to protect the property of the city with people crowding the streets, people could become unpredictable and create chaos because of a Super Bowl win.
“Don’t act like animals. It’s easy as that.Winning is fun and especially when it’s a big game like the Super Bowl,” police officer Daniel Allen said.
The Philadephia Eagles beat the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22 in Super Bowl LIX winning the team’s second Lombardi Trophy.