PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Mere hours after the deadly tragedy at a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, the Philadelphia Police Department is pulling out all the stops to keep people safe for the city's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
"Officers on bikes, officers on foot, officers in patrol cars," said Chief Inspector Michael Cram.
He said officers will focus on traffic flow and control, avoiding a repeat of the deadly events of Waukesha.
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"You’ll see officers directing and controlling traffic and you’ll see cars ensuring traffic won’t flow down streets we need to keep closed," Cram said.
"We always go into with a plan to cover every situation that could arise."
While giving an overview of the police department's preparation for Thursday's parade, he admitted that it’s impossible to predict crowd sizes, but they are able to get some clues from other recent events.
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"Just based on other events we’ve handled, we are seeing decent crowd sizes."
Considering the recently decreased number of patrol officers, Cram said the department has added supplemental patrol officers, so they have things covered.
"We’re good for personnel. We do our best to keep the proper staffing on the street," said Cram.
"We use all the city resources to keep people safe."
