Boston council panel reviews large-event safety plans after New Orleans attack

BOSTON -- February 13, 2025, Boston City Council reviews large-event safety protocols amid federal funding concerns. The Committee on Public Safety and Criminal Justice, chaired by Councilor Henry Santana, convened a hearing Thursday on docket 0163, sponsored by Councilors Erin J. Murphy, Edward M. Flynn, and Enrique J. Pepén, to examine security measures at events ranging from neighborhood festivals to the Boston Marathon. Boston EMS Chief James Hooley reported the department's 440 EMTs responded to more than 140,000 clinical incidents in 2024, transporting 93,774 patients, while Police Superintendent Robert Ciccolo said vehicle barriers have been in use since at least September 2001 and continue to expand as threats evolve. Hooley warned that potential cuts to federal grants, which funded training partnerships with counterparts in Paris, London, and Madrid, put "things that weren't frill" at risk. Fire Commissioner Paul Burke raised rooftop safety as a specific Evacuation Day parade hazard, noting unguarded roofs are not designed for crowd loads and could collapse. The city is in active discussions about a formal crowd-size threshold that would automatically activate the Emergency Operations Center, which graduated its first Community Emergency Response Team class, 50 members, since the 1970s.