Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - With the somber one-year anniversary of the May 14 mass shooting at the Tops Friendly Market on Jefferson Avenue fast approaching, the City of Buffalo is planning a number of remembrance events over this coming weekend to not only honor the 10 victims who were killed in the racially motivated attack, but also continue help the East Buffalo community continue to heal.
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With the weekend set to feature a few larger gatherings for the community to pay their respects and heal together, security will certainly be a concern among many people, especially with the constant threat of a mass shooting taking place, as well as the risk of copycat shootings happening closer to the anniversary of the attack.
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While speaking on Tuesday during a press conference to touch base on the 5/14 Remembrance Weekend events, Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown says security across the City will absolutely be heightened with every planned event over the weekend.
"In the City of Buffalo, there is a specific security plan. Given the nature of this event, and what happened in our community on 5/14, there is going to be a very comprehensive security plan," said Mayor Brown. "It will be heightened in the community, and it will be high at all of these events to ensure people's comfort and safety."
For some local security experts in Western New York, they expect not just a heightened security presence through Buffalo Police and local law enforcement, but also through private security entities.
"I think in the area and the community, you'll see a heightened awareness, a heightened level of presence of law enforcement and security. But overall, the focus will probably remain on just protecting the venue's that are hosting these events," said Jeff Rinaldo, former Buffalo Police Captain and current partner with Vista Security Group.
"Obviously, it's a heavy weekend, there's a lot of remembrance components that are going on. But it's important to make sure that everyone is taking safety precautions serious," added Mario Rodriguez, President of Forseti Protection Group." The copycat component of that and the anniversaries are always something that is a cause for concern when we're looking at security risks and vulnerabilities at organizations, whether they're schools or just in the community in general."
When it comes to security demands for the upcoming weekend, Rinaldo has had a significant increase in calls requesting for additional measures like security personnel.
"I think a lot of events will be conducting security screening for any type of weapons for people that are entering those locations. But overall, a lot of these are just being handled as mass gathering events," Rinaldo said. "The protocols for all mass gathering events are kind of the same, in terms of the security presence needed, the law enforcement resources that are assigned."
For Rodriguez, he says the requests coming in for Forseti Protection since the May 14 shooting last year has been twofold.
"One has been the risk assessments and vulnerability assessments, understanding where gaps and resources need to be allocated through businesses, religious institutions and schools throughout Western New York, and even throughout the state. Then from there, the second part has been ballistic protection for windows," Rodriguez said. "After the Covenant shooting [in Nashville], that request has gone up even more. Those individuals looking to make sure that situation isn't occurring at their sites, and their doors are not breached even though they're locked, having someone shoot through the glass, it's always a risk. Those two requests have been really exponential in the last not only six months, but year."
In addition, calls have come to both Rodriguez and Rinaldo over the last year to provide schools, workplaces and other businesses and community spaces to help with active shooter trainings.
"We've been fortunate enough to be able to work with many, many organizations, not only in Western New York but throughout the country. This year alone in the first quarter, I think we've trained over 2,000 individuals in active shooter training, not including any of the additional trainings and mechanisms that we offer," Rodriguez explained. "We've been fortunate enough to be able to help and assist, and again, empower these individuals in those critical moments to make sure that they're not finding themselves as victims in these situations.
"We've had a huge demand for our Training Services Division here to come out and conduct not only training on site, but also to conduct security assessments, everything from educational institutions to private businesses, to really give them a blueprint of what their security looks like, and where they need to make improvements," Rinaldo said.
Being a former Police Captain with the Buffalo Police Department, Rinaldo feels the comprehensive security plan Mayor Brown mentioned will feature a large local patrol presence in-and-around the community.
"You'll see collaboration with local law enforcement - whether it's Erie County Sheriff's Department, the State Police - as well as probably a fair amount of collaboration with federal law enforcement to, basically, keep an eye on social media, be aware of any threats that appear, as well as lend a hand with investigating any type of incidents that may occur," he said.
In years past, the thought of enhanced security measures at large gathering spaces may have been something that people did not want to see. This could have been for events like a Buffalo Bills game in Orchard Park, or a concert event held at KeyBank Center in Downtown Buffalo.
Given today's current reality of people living with a constant threat of an active shooter in large gathering situations, those enhanced security measures are now a welcome sight for members of the community.
"I think people can be very comfortable living their lives as they always have. They should know venues that provide mass gathering - a concert or other type of sports complex, things of that nature - they have very professional security plans, they maintain very close relationships with local law enforcement," Rinaldo said. "Security is definitely on the forefront of any of these venues' minds, in terms of the events that they host and how they plan on securing them."
Even with the 5/14 Remembrance Weekend likely to have a strong security presence, Rodriguez still reminds everyone of the importance of being aware of their surroundings.
"Start there, empower yourself, empower your family, be aware of your surroundings and have a plan in place. Know what the norm is, know what the expectations are for the environments that you're gonna find yourself in," he said. "If you have that, we always call it, the 'Bourne-Sense' or that 'Spidey-Sense' in that capacity, you start to feel something abnormal and you're not comfortable, it's important to make sure you acknowledge that. Don't just push it down and try to ignore that. If there's something that's out of the norm, speak to local law enforcement, reported immediately, or just get out of the environment that you're currently in and facing."