ARLINGTON, Texas — After hosting more than half a million people at Globe Life Field, the City of Arlington is convinced it's ready to host even bigger events.
"This was an all-hands-on deck scenario," said Lt. Neal Landfield, who coordinates safety plans for the Arlington Police Department.
Landfield has had big assignments, but nothing like the public safety for the Texas Rangers World Series celebrations. He issued assignments to more than 400 officers from APD and other departments. He also coordinated with state and federal law enforcement partners during the celebration event. The Rangers parade route grew to more than half a million fans.
Despite a handful of arrests, like the fan climbing a light pole, officers stayed focused on safety across the entire entertainment district. Landfield said he strategically placed officers at locations which included routes in and out of the entertainment district for foot and vehicle traffic. They could monitor much of the crowd from the emergency management command center where officials witnessed that fan on camera who risked his own safety by climbing the light pole.
"That is more important than stopping people from climbing the light pole," Landfield said. "Unfortunately, you can't make people care about their safety."
The Rangers' World Series win put Arlington in the crowd control spotlight across the country, but also helped prepare city leaders for the future.
Arlington Mayor Jim Ross watched the Rangers championship win at Texas Live! He had the option of flying to Arizona, but instead wanted to be with the people and fans back home.
"It was electric," said Ross.
Now, he and police are confident about hosting the hundreds of thousands of people expected to attend the All Star Game and the 2026 World Cup in Arlington.
"The All-Star Game is next year, it's right around the corner," said Ross, "I think what we were able to demonstrate this year is this is what Arlington was born to do."
The World Series celebration also showed the diversity Ross has built in Arlington.
"It's old and young and black and white and Latino and Asians and religious differences," said Ross, "It brought everybody together to say, this is it. This is what we've been waiting for half a century."
"Although it's several years away, we have already begun the FIFA World Cup planning," Landfield said.
Landfield said he considers the Rangers' Friday celebrations a learning opportunity. He shared some of the takeaways for planning events that could draw even bigger crowds and more dignitaries, not just from around the country, but around the world.
"Planning becomes even a bigger deal, because now we have geopolitical concerns, because we have countries involved and the dignitaries we're protecting are not just local politicians, but they're heads of state," said Landfield, "And so everything gets ramped up significantly. The biggest takeaway, I would say, is the need for additional response teams. We had a response teams assigned along the route inside and outside. But when you talk about an event that's probably three times as large as any typical weekend that we've had in the entertainment district, we simply needed more response teams on the outside."