ATLANTA -- The Georgia World Congress Center Authority is probing why thousands of football fans stayed stuck outside of Mercedes Benz stadium for hours prior to the January 8th college football championship game. The probe will include why the federal Transportation Security Administration was called in to help handle fan security.
Mercedes Benz stadium had a security plan in place when it first opened for business last August. It used a security contractor to get people through magnetometers at the stadium’s entrances.
But that plan required a big adjustment when President Trump announced he wanted to attend the College Football Championship game January 8th. So that night, the security contractors went away – and were replaced by federal agents with the Transportation Security Administration -- the TSA – the same folks who secure the nation’s airports.
At dusk, long lines had formed outside the stadium gates. "It was not a lot of fun," said Ryan Fox, a University of Georgia fan. "It was raining. It started raining even harder about an hour and a half into the wait. The temperature dropped to below freezing."
Fox says he arrived at the time the gates were scheduled to open – then waited two and a half hours to get through security and into the stadium. "The Secret Service and TSA agents were not very polite," Fox said.
Fox says the federal agents seemed out of their element securing a sporting event, using foul language and losing patience with the thousands of fans trying to enter the Benz.
The investigation will examine how the presence of TSA and Secret Service agents impacted the evening; how many entrances stayed closed and for how long; and what many fans described as a lack of communication as the evening dragged on.
"You could tell that, as far as a sporting event, that they were not used to it -- at least the agents I encountered," Fox said.
When President Trump visited the Georgia World Congress Center in April for the NRA convention, no TSA agents were called in to secure the auditorium where Trump spoke.
The Benz is owned by the state, and the state ran the Georgia Dome. But the state doesn’t run the Benz – Falcons owner Arthur Blank runs the Benz as part of his agreement with the state to build the stadium.
