One drawback of managing major-event security is that no one talks about it when you succeed. This was certainly true of the 89th Annual Academy Awards, which took place in Hollywood on February 26. Monday morning’s Oscar buzz was all about the winners and a major fiasco around who won Best Picture. What didn’t make the news was the great success law enforcement had in protecting the attendees and ensuring that protests around the event were safe and secure.
The Los Angeles Police Department did an outstanding job at this year’s event, and Haystax was proud to support LAPD’s efforts as it deployed with our Mobile Indicator app connected to the California Common Operating Picture (Cal COP) for Threat Awareness. Powered by the Haystax Constellation Analytics Platform™, Cal COP is a cloud-based data-sharing environment that provides a real-time common operating picture for public safety officials.
By using Constellation, organizations move to a dynamic and predictive risk posture, make quicker decisions and speed remediation for more effective protection of their critical systems, data, facilities and people. At the Oscars, Cal COP continuously connected hundreds of officers in the field to command-post personnel as they observed potential threats both before and during the event. In the command post, users could instantly view those threats in the context of the event itself and all the critical infrastructure assets in the area. Layering that with other streaming data sources delivers true domain awareness that is critical to ensure this type of smooth security operation.
A project of the Coalition of California UASIs (CCU), Cal COP helps protect more than 85 percent of the population across the state and provides the ability for Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) regions within California, including the Los Angeles/Long Beach urban area, to share information statewide. Cal COP combines data about protected critical infrastructure for over 60,000 assets across the state with more than 125 information streams, to provide unparalleled situational awareness. This dynamic, real-time information sharing allows public safety officials across the state to monitor incidents and natural hazards, and respond appropriately.
A growing number of high-profile events have been secured by Cal COP, including San Francisco’s Bay-to-Breakers race, the US Open golf championship, America’s Cup, Long Beach Marathon and Super Bowl 50. Next month, it will be used to support the Los Angeles Marathon.
As for the Academy Awards, thanks to the hard work of LAPD — and with a great set of capabilities including Cal COP — the biggest issue of the night was figuring out how Warren Beatty got that wrong card in the first place.