On the ground check-in in Las Vegas, how do open space venues adjust for safety without losing their appeal? Tom Petty's Los Angeles legacy.
In light of the Las Vegas Shooting, how can we secure open spaces better?
The mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas this weekend is, sadly, not the first time a large public event has been under attack in recent memory.
In this case, however, the concert was outdoors and totally open. It was designed for maximum capacity and enjoyment, but exposed vulnerabilities that security officials may not have considered.
So the question we must ask ourselves is: how we can secure these spaces better? Is it even possible?
"The... concern is the unique aspect of this attack," said Errol Southers, a counter-terrorism expert at USC. "We've been focused for the last several years on venues specifically that host or can occupy large numbers of people - stadiums, concert venues - but here we have now a shooter...who decides to attack thousands of people from an elevated position almost military style."
It's a situation that presents a whole new set of concerns for security officials. "In an outdoor event you are literally cooped up...and you are limited with regards to a shelter-in-place option, " said Southers, adding that this will be a major factor in conversations among security officials going forward.
"We will certainly be looking at elevated positions from open-air events like this in the future and I think they may decide to increase the number of exits accessible to people," said Southers. "But at the end of the day, as the sheriff said yesterday, an event like this is really difficult, or even impossible, to prevent from happening."
To hear the whole interview with Errol Southers about securing open spaces, click on the blue player above.
UC President Napolitano: 'The First Amendment doesn't have an exception for obnoxious speech'
The debate over freedom of speech on college campuses has reached a fever pitch, with UC Berkeley playing host to a particularly contentious battleground.
Last month's Free Speech Week, organized by a conservative student group, had a line-up of controversial guests like former Breitbart editor, Milo Yiannopoulos.
In the end, the event didn't materialize as planned but it did manage to sparked a lot of conflict on campus, and it cost Berkeley and the UC system hundreds of thousands of dollars.
To find out how the UC's are managing all this, Take Two's A Martinez spoke with system President, Janet Napolitano.
What defines free speech in a university setting?
Well I think free speech is exactly what the words portend. Hopefully, it puts something into the academic or educational conversation. That it is fact based and evidence based. That it permits civil disagreements on all sides. But I fully recognize that free speech, particularly on a university campus, is very passionate, very polarizing, and very political.
How does free speech on campus differ from other environment?
I think campuses are crucibles of free speech. They have been historically. They are where you have students, you have faculty, you have staff… These have always been centers of debate. And particularly in polarized times like the one we live in now.
Are there limits to what can be protected under free speech?
There are limits in terms of personal attacks as delineated by the supreme court. But those limits are at the boundaries. University campuses should be places where free speech is expressed and acknowledged. You know, one common misconception is that free speech doesn’t encompass hate speech. And in fact, the first amendment doesn’t have an exception for obnoxious speech. It doesn’t have an exception for hate speech. It’s one of the key protections in our bill of rights and the university has a keen value placed on it. That’s why you have someone like a Milo come on campus.
You’ve said that Milo Yiannopoulos is more of a provocateur than someone interested in discourse… If that’s the case, how do you foster communication?
Well, Milo is a particularly difficult and aggravating case because he is a provocateur. He’s not really interested in having a debate. But I think that the way to handle him is to allow him to speak and then put on panels and have invitations to other, more thoughtful speakers who can express a wide range of opinion and do so civilly.
That’s what they did at Berkeley in the week or two preceding Milo. The chancellor hosted a panel with, I think it was 5 speakers, from a range of political viewpoints to discuss a range of controversial issues. And they do so in a civil way. And brought their best arguments to bear. That’s when freedom of speech on a college campus is best represented. However, we’re still going to have the provocateurs like Milo in this environment.
In light of Berkeley's history as a battleground for the free speech debate, what’s the university's role in 2017?
I think it is to educate our students as to the meeting of the first amendment. It is to prepare our students to engage in discourse and to be able to make good, solid arguments. The answer to hate speech in a way, is more speech. And then, obviously, to protect the safety and security of students, faculty, and staff when you have somebody like a Milo come on campus.
What is your role as president of the UC system in managing all this as?
One of them is purely financial. The security costs associated with Milo’s Free Speech Week were high, and so the Office of the President, my office, in these extraordinary circumstances is helping to foot the bill for that. And the other is to make that our campuses, and that our chancellors have clear guidance and policies on their campuses for speech and how student groups bring speakers on campus and so forth.
How much longer can UC financially support these kinds of events?
That’s a really good question because the costs were high and is that sustainable over the long run? Does the university consider some kind of cap on security costs? It’s difficult see how you would implement that. So, I guess where I end up is that freedom of speech is not free and this, unfortunately, is a cost the university will need to bear.
BONUS CONTENT: Napolitano on Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ decision to rescind the Obama-era rules about investigations in accusation of sexual assault.
You’ve been very vocal that it weakens protection around sexual violence on campus… How do you expect the UC’s to move forward?
We intend to maintain our existing framework which we just redid, in terms of how we handle these cases, and how we investigate them and adjudicate them, and the sanctions that we apply for them. We will continue to use the preponderance of evidence standard. We will continue to enforce the California law on affirmative consent. In other words, we don’t intend to make any changes in light of the Secretary’s recent pronouncement of Title IX.
Does that put California in a position to once again buck against the federal government?
I think that even the guidance that the Secretary has issued in the interim is somewhat murky both from what’s-a-good-policy standpoint, but also, for clarity’s sake, we’re going to keep on with our current standards. And once the Secretary announces how they’re going to proceed with formal rule making, and notice-and-comment, we intend to submit some comments to that.
To listen to the interview with Janet Napolitano, click on the media player above.
2 Supreme Court cases could dramatically change immigration enforcement, as we know it
The Supreme Court is back in session and will resume hearing cases, including two they heard, but didn’t rule on due to the court missing a ninth justice. Now, with the addition of Neil Gorsuch, the Court is prepared to hear these cases re-argued.
One case, Sessions v. Dimaya, challenges the constitutionality of a statute which is used to automatically deport immigrants-- including legal immigrants. The second, Jennings v. Rodrigues, addresses the rights of immigrants to be released from custody on bond. The alternative? Being detained indefinitely.
While it’s unclear which way the Court will rule, the newly appointed Justice Gorsuch is expected to be pivotal.
"Each of these cases raises very important issues that are hard to predict how a conservative justice is going to decide," said Kevin Johnson, Dean of the UC Davis School of Law.
Johnson, who spoke to Take Two host A Martínez, said that the results of these cases could indicate how much power the judicial branch is willing to allow the executive in carrying out immigration law. It also indicates how many rights they're willing to afford immigrants.
"One might think that, after 200 years, we had a good sense of whether the Constitution applies to immigrants or not," said Johnson. "And there's been sort of a slow process in court decisions expanding the rights of immigrants."
To listen to the full interview, click the blue play button above.
How do music venues balance security with appeal?
In the aftermath of the mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas, the Pasadena Police Department is reviewing security plans and policies for the live music venues it covers—namely, the Rose Bowl.
"Whenever you have an event like this, we always review our operational plans and adjust our staffing to make sure that we're staffed accordingly and that we can keep everybody safe," said Art Chute, lieutenant with the Pasadena Police Department.
Los Angeles is known for its live music scene and packed calendar of concerts happening all over the city on any given night. Case in point: This Friday, Coldplay will be at the Rose Bowl.
Chute said that while events like the Las Vegas mass shooting alert the department to risks, he is not overly concerned that something similar could happen at the Rose Bowl with the measures they have in place.
"We feel very comfortable with our staffing levels and what we have deployed for this Friday."
On the types of events that have altered security at the Rose Bowl
"We've changed things in the past depending on what type of events ... Most recently we had the Ariana Grande [concert] bombing in May of this year ... This was an event where people were leaving the concert and there was an explosion. That made us look at our staffing levels and we've increased it since then."
On where officers patrol during events
"We do patrol the outer crest of the Rose Bowl, which would include the streets. It includes those hills [which are located in the background of the facility]. But more importantly ... we have oversight from our helicopter above, which is dedicated to the Rose Bowl and the event."
On making people feel safe at the Rose Bowl
"I think once everybody gets there, they do have a good time and relax. It's a great venue for any type of event, specifically a concert. We do have overt resources to make people feel comfortable and see that there's a large police presence and that's very visible. We also have a covert police presence; there's things that we have deployed that people won't see, but it does go to their safety."
To hear more about the security at the Rose Bowl, click the blue player above.
The business of live music and the price of tragedy
The mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas on Sunday was the latest attack that took place in a live music space. In the past two years, there have also been attacks on an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, a nightclub in Orlando, and the Bataclan Theater in Paris.
It's a cause of concern, not only for security experts, but for the music industry. That includes everyone from concert organizers and promoters, to the fans and the musicians themselves.
"Music fans have definitely born the brunt of terrorism in the last two years," said Dave Ross, senior correspondent for Billboard.
Brooks said live concerts are becoming more important than ever in the music business. As revenue from records has fallen in the last decade, revenue from touring and live events has skyrocketed.
"There's just so many more opportunities to earn income from concerts," Brooks said. "The concert industry has really done a good job in the last ten years of basically creating an economy for these artists to make money where there's basically not as much money as they can make [through] recording."
But if both musicians and fans no longer feel safe at these sorts of events, what does that mean for the future of live concerts?
"Up until this weekend, I would tell any parent, 'a concert is one of the safest places you can send your child. There's security everywhere ... These events are run by professionals that have decades of experience,'" Brooks said. "But nobody wants to be a victim at one of these mass shootings. It's gonna make people, I think, a bit wary about attending something where they feel vulnerable."
To hear more about the effect recent attacks have had on the music business, click the blue play button above.
What Tom Petty meant to music and Los Angeles
Legendary musician Tom Petty, who rose to fame in the 1970s with his band the Heartbreakers, died Monday after a heart attack.
Full statement:
— Tom Petty (@tompetty)
Full statement: pic.twitter.com/FGCVI5yIaa
— Tom Petty (@tompetty) October 3, 2017
Music critic Steve Hochman joined A Martinez to remember Petty and to share some of his personal stories about working with and befriending him.
Here are his thoughts:
Just a week and a half ago, at the Hollywood Bowl, after Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers closed their 40th anniversary tour, he seemed in a tremendously good place — elated, energized, happy to share his remarkable song catalog with his hometown fans.
He and the band have their roots in Gainesville, Florida, but they moved out to Los Angeles in the mid-1970s. This is where the Heartbreakers formed, with guitarist Mike Campbell and keyboardist Benmont Tench in the band from the beginning, and bassist Ron Blair, who left in the ‘80s but returned to the band in the early 2000s.
I was drawn in from the very start with the song “American Girl” released in 1976 on their first album, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Here he is in 1985, performing the song at the Wiltern Theatre.
What a great rocker, looking back to the ‘60s and such bands as the Byrds, the essential L.A. band. This is the song that's been going through my head almost constantly, particularly one line, as he paints a portrait of this young woman standing on her balcony, listening to “the cars roll by / like waves crashin’ on the beach,” yearning and searching for “something that’s so close / yet still so far away.”
"Music is probably the only real magic I have encountered in my life. There's not some trick involved with it. It's pure and it's real. It moves, it heals, it communicates and does all these incredible things." -Tom Petty
In 1989, Rolling Stone sent me on the road with Petty and the band in their native Florida to write a “Tom Petty Tour Diary” feature with him. It is still one of the highlights of my career. I became part of the inner circle and remained close friends with him and his family for several years, as well as the band members.
Around the same time, he became part of the supergroup Traveling Wilburys alongside Bob Dylan, George Harrison and Roy Orbison — real heroes of his.
What I saw in that time was a man dedicated to his music and to his fans, grateful for what he’d been able to achieve. The song that still sums up that tour for me and that time around him is one that was new at the time: the ecstatic “Running Down a Dream.”
Petty's legacy is as a regular-guy rocker. “Breakdown,” “You Don’t Have to Live Like a Refugee,” and “I Won’t Back Down.” A populist with a stance. That is the legacy, but there’s more to it, something much deeper than the sing-along choruses. Last year, he launched a satellite radio channel, and on his show called "Tom Petty's Buried Treasure," he displayed his love, knowledge and excitement for great rock, blues, soul, folk and country music. It was music that spoke of and spoke to regular folks, earthy roots and values, struggles to make a life and make it meaningful, even on a small scale.
That small scale is something Petty made epic, from the characters he wrote about and, at times, embodied.
The thing that comes through it all, though, is a sentimental side. The heart of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. That was what really struck me during the Hollywood Bowl show, most profoundly in one song that is less noticed. “Walls” was not on a Petty album, but it was featured in the soundtrack of the 1996 movie “She’s the One.” “You got a heart so big / it could crush this town,” he sings in his slightly melancholy drawl. “And I can’t hold out forever / even walls fall down.”