Subsequent yr’s Tremendous Bowl and males’s World Cup matches deliberate at Levi’s Stadium will draw such big crowds to the Bay Space that the area’s leaders are hoping to draft the passion and vacationer {dollars} they convey by planning festivities of their very own — from concert events to dam events and drone reveals.
As a lot as these occasions are meant to make for ebullient, rolling avenue events, native leaders are getting ready for one thing sinister as properly: a worst-case situation.
Santa Clara County’s O’Connor Hospital, as an illustration, simply ran a drill with docs, nurses and volunteers in its again car parking zone. The hypothetical catastrophe? A bomb exploding with poison chemical substances at Levi’s Stadium.
“With major sporting events coming next year, we’re really emphasizing more mass casualty training, decontamination training, hospital command center preparation,” stated Sheila Tuna, who was operating the drill for the county’s Santa Clara Valley Healthcare system. “We’re really just trying to get ahead of the game and prepared for anything that may come across.”
The Tremendous Bowl is greater than three months away, and if there have been any credible threats in opposition to the stadium that holds greater than 68,000 followers, public security officers aren’t saying.
That terrorists may flip a serious sporting occasion right into a horror scene, nonetheless, has been the stuff of Hollywood — the 1977 thriller “Black Sunday” revolved round a plot to bomb the Tremendous Bowl. However actual sporting occasions have been occasional targets of terrorists, from the 1972 Olympics in Munich to the 2013 Boston Marathon.
Security officers on the stadium, in the meantime, used final summer time’s Gold Cup soccer match between Mexico and Honduras as a safety dry run for subsequent summer time’s FIFA males’s World Cup. And regardless of a lawsuit filed in opposition to the Trump Administration by a number of regional governments, together with San Jose and Santa Clara County, over strings hooked up to federal catastrophe funds, the area’s public security businesses and federal officers are teaming as much as keep public security for the Tremendous Bowl on Feb. 8 and 6 World Cup matches in June and July.
Safety operations are all the time part of any main occasion, and asserting stepped-up security plans may be each a warning to dangerous actors and a reassurance to a jittery public. The Bay Space Host Committee final month agreed to pay town of Santa Clara $6.4 million for added security bills.
However with political violence on the rise, safety will likely be on heightened alert. Current feedback by Division of Homeland Safety Director Kristi Noem to stage ICE brokers on the stadium in the course of the halftime efficiency of Puerto Rican pop star Unhealthy Bunny, a serious draw of Latino followers, will solely enhance tensions, safety analysts say.
“We’ll be all over that place,” Noem stated throughout an interview in early October. The one individuals who needs to be attending the occasion, she stated, are “law-abiding Americans who love this country.”
However safety marketing consultant Michael Leininger, a former San Jose police detective, known as Noem’s feedback, which additionally criticized the NFL for being “so weak” by reserving the musician, “unnecessary.”
“She’s creating problems, not solving problems,” stated Leininger, who’s conversant in a few of Levi Stadium’s safety procedures however is just not a part of its safety operation. “You’re going to have a general sense of anxiety there. And I can see the potential for conflict with attendees. I can see the potential for conflict with ICE.”
Whether or not Noem will comply with by means of along with her risk is unsure. White Home Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated days later that there was “no tangible plan” for ICE brokers to be on the Tremendous Bowl, including, nonetheless, that the company will “arrest and deport illegal immigrants when we find them if they are criminals.”
Regional public security officers, from the Host Committee to the Santa Clara Police Division that’s the lead public security company for Superbowl 60, declined to supply particulars of safety operations, saying solely that they’re coordinating safety with metropolis, state and federal officers in addition to NFL and FIFA management to arrange for any “human caused, technological, or natural hazards.”
The Division of Homeland Safety, regardless of any ICE operations, is all the time concerned in main occasions, from Tremendous Bowls to air reveals to Mardi Gras and main marathons, offering intelligence and terrorist risk assessments.
“The safety and security planning process is highly collaborative and has been active for years, and we’re confident it will result in having the latest and most effective security protocols in place,” Zaileen Janmohamed, the Host Committee’s president & CEO, stated in a press release. “Our highest priority is to ensure fans from and visiting the Bay Area have a positive and memorable experience that reflects the amazing spirit of our region.”
But when final yr’s Tremendous Bowl in New Orleans affords any roadmap, safety will likely be intense. A month earlier, a Texas-born Military veteran carrying an ISIS flag plowed his truck right into a crowd of revelers on famed Bourbon Road, authorities stated, killing 14 individuals and injuring 57.
On the Superdome, armed federal brokers had been positioned on rooftops and at transportation hubs, with armored SWAT autos defending the stadium. Blast boundaries had been arrange across the perimeter and vans had been required to go by means of big X-ray machines. The occasion, which President Trump attended to the shock of the gang, remained secure.
Bay Space leaders predict the identical.
“Large bustling crowds and activity can become a magnet for bad actors,” San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan stated in a press release. “As San Jose prepares to step onto the world stage, we’re putting safety first — for residents and visitors alike.”
Within the again car parking zone of O’Connor Hospital early this month, Tuna and her staff had been doing simply that. Within the latest follow drill, they activated a command middle and hazmat department, and arrange tents geared up with particular hoses to clean down toxic chemical substances. Docs and nurses, in addition to staff from almost each different space of the hospital, pitched in, many donning decontamination fits.
They “treated” plastic and inflatable dummies in addition to volunteers from Mission Faculty who acted like critically injured followers, some screaming in feigned ache. For a county-run system that operates 4 hospitals, two trauma facilities, 15 pressing care clinics and a regional burn middle, some 450 staff are skilled to be prepared to help.
“We train all year long for any disaster or no-notice incident that may occur, whether it be an earthquake, a plane crash, car incident, a mass casualty, an explosion,” Tuna stated. With two main sporting occasions forward, she stated, “We never know what we’re going to get, so we want to be prepared in any way that we can.”
Initially Revealed: October 21, 2025 at 2:35 PM PDT
