Last night Clump and I walked to our gate just like we have for the last who know how many years. People gather and line up, quite orderly, in six or seven inspection lines and are whisked through at a pretty good pace. Well, we get up there yesterday and there seems to be some confusion. The lines aren't progressing forward as normal. There is a four foot tall steel barrier in the way and all the lines are being pushed to the left to go around the barrier to funnel everybody into two lines. Nobody know about this ahead of time. You can only guess what happened as game time approached. People started pushing and getting mad. People, including me, were getting squeezed and things were getting tight. Then it happened. People started to lift and push down the steel fence. At one point I was in the second row behind it. The push from behind lifted me off my feet - I am 215 pounds - and I was not on firm ground in the dark. People were pushing in multiple directions. I was literally pushed to the end of the steel fence. I snuck around the corner of the fence and slid between two people as people started to push the fence over. Somebody said that the fence had been anchored to the ground with spikes and the spikes were exposed. I got up to the inspection and I only saw three inspectors instead of the usual 6 or 7. I got in but lost Clump. After I got in I waited to see if he was going to make it through...the it happened. They closed all the gates! Supposedly there was a fight behind the gates and they didn't want the guys getting into the stadium. There is a general exit next to the gate. Whether they opened it to let people in or whether people pushed it in I don't know but it opened and there was a jailbreak. I bet 200 or more people got in. Security pushed it shut and they just closed down the gate with hundreds of people stuck outside - including Clump. His story of how he got in I can't tell because I was not there.
Bottom line, increased security? NO! This was nothing more than increased time delay. An embarassment. I am sure people got hurt. They surely didn't get into the game on time. The system worked fine for years. Somebody truly dropped the ball on this one. Not the sign of a first class organization. Somebody should be reprimanded, at the least, and fired, at the worst, for this decision. Had this been discussed on national TV I would have felt terrible to be a fan. It was disgusting to be treated this way. I would love to have five minutes with Russ Brandon or somebody who controls this. They were way, way off base.
Bottom line, increased security? NO! This was nothing more than increased time delay. An embarassment. I am sure people got hurt. They surely didn't get into the game on time. The system worked fine for years. Somebody truly dropped the ball on this one. Not the sign of a first class organization. Somebody should be reprimanded, at the least, and fired, at the worst, for this decision. Had this been discussed on national TV I would have felt terrible to be a fan. It was disgusting to be treated this way. I would love to have five minutes with Russ Brandon or somebody who controls this. They were way, way off base.
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