Mega-security planned for Mayweather-Pacquiao mega-fight weekend

It’s not the biggest Las Vegas Valley event of the year, and only a select few thousand will be watching in person.

But in anticipation for Saturday’s mega-fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao, Las Vegas police went as far as Pasadena, Calif., and Phoenix for help with security.

Metro Events Planning coordinator Lt. Roxanne McDaris represented Las Vegas police at the 2015 NCAA football championship semifinal in January and Super Bowl XLIX in February, getting tips from local police on managing crowds at sporting events, she told the Review-Journal.

McDaris, whose unit oversees more than 3,000 annual events in the valley, spent several days collaborating with leaders from Pasadena, Calif., and Phoenix police departments, discussing everything from the city’s new stadium project to the Saturday fight.

The MGM Grand Garden holds a little more than 16,000 spectators, but the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight will draw an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 visitors to the valley over the weekend, McDaris said.

The lieutenant said projected numbers will make this weekend the second-biggest this year, tying with January’s Consumer Electronics Show and trailing only the New Year’s Eve bash on the Strip. June’s Electric Daisy Carnival should rank fourth, while last month’s NASCAR Kobalt 400 places a close fifth.

But Saturday’s event is different than the large events Metro is accustomed to, McDaris said. It’s the largest sporting draw to the city on Metro’s 2015 slate and, with fight-related events going from Monday to Saturday, the longest-lasting.

It probably will also be the most diverse, McDaris said, thanks to a large international audience attracted by Pacquiao.

“We really haven’t had to deal with a sporting event to this scale,” McDaris said. “It’s important to see how other agencies handle things like that.

“We have to have a much broader viewpoint of where we’re going to be operating and what type of things we’ll answer to,” she added.

Saturday’s big fight is more like a NCAA championship semifinal game and the Super Bowl, McDaris said. That means emotions will run hotter, in part because the much-hyped matchup has been years in the making.

Such excitement mixed with alcohol, she said, could provoke unsavory reactions among fans and spectators.

“It’s important that people are aware of their surroundings and know what’s happening around them,” McDaris said.

That’s good advice in a city that in 2007 played host to the NBA All-Star game and saw about 400 people arrested and at least four shootings attributed to fans.

MGM is also home to perhaps the most famous post-boxing match incident in recent history. In September 1996, after a Bruce Seldon-Mike Tyson fight, rapper Tupac Shakur was captured on camera beating a man in MGM’s lobby. Shakur was killed in a drive-by shooting later that night. The slaying has never been solved.

Police and MGM security are confident they will be ready.

“We’ve worked very closely with MGM to make sure we’re in the right place at the right time,” McDaris said. “Instead of trying to catch up to an issue, we want to try and get ahead of it and prevent that from happening again.”

Among venue security issues, McDaris’ department focused on improving crowd control in response to recent post-fight incidents at the MGM. After a Mayweather-Marcos Maidana fight last May, 60 people were injured in a crowd stampede after a falling partition in the MGM food court made a noise that sounded like a gunshot. When the two fought again in September a man was injured in a small fight outside of the arena.

Tim Jeffery is MGM’s vice president of security and a lead coordinator for on-site crowd control. An MGM Resorts employee since 1989, Jeffery said only that venue security will be “enhanced” for the fight, which is generating “unprecedented excitement.”

“We’ll have a higher-than-usual number of security employees, and that’ll be really obvious to anybody that’s visiting the property,” Jeffery said.

Off-site festivities during the week and on fight night will be spread across the valley, McDaris said — a contrast from New Year’s Eve and CES, which center on the Strip.

And while the annual New Year’s Eve celebration is usually a one or two-day draw for visitors, parties for Saturday’s boxing match, billed “The Fight of the Century,” will start early today and run through the weekend, McDaris said.

“Places throughout the valley are taking advantage of the fact that this is the only fight of its kind,” she said. “The pre- and post-fight events will keep people in town.”

At McCarran International Airport, Transportation Security Administration is paying overtime for a 10 percent increase in staffing on Sunday, TSA spokeswoman Lorie Dankers said.

Additional teams of explosive-sniffing dogs will be used at the airport during peak traffic periods before and after the fight, Dankers said.

“We’re want to make sure it’s a sufficient process for everybody and that all of these people can make it home securely,” Dankers said.

Law enforcement is encouraging fight night spectators and participants in this week’s festivities to speak up if they see anything suspicious.

Public assistance helps police better do their job, McDaris said, and extra eyes will be a significant part of reducing crime during the week.

“We’re not going to let the criminal element take over and make our town unsafe (this) week or weekend,” McDaris said. “We’re doing everything in our power to make it safe.”

Contact Chris Kudialis at ckudialis@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0283. Find him on Twitter: @kudialisrj.