security thoughts that I didn't have

[lauradi7dw]

There is a long amazing twitter thread about how badly organized the crowd control was at Trump's thing. The person who wrote it estimated the crowd to be between 20000-100000 people (half of what Trump's folks said) at least in part because seemingly some people couldn't get into the area due to the way security areas were designed.
https://x.com/dougblandry/status/1934052056878243848

I am used to "just show up" sorts of gatherings, so I hadn't stopped to think about spectators being required to pass security checks on the way in DC. I was interested to see yesterday in Boston that there were police officers inspecting each vehicle (for sneaky bombs, maybe?) and then putting a tiny green sticker on once it had been approved. If you wanted to bring a sneaky bomb, you could keep it in your backpack until you had your tiny green sticker, and *then* put in in your vehicle. Or not. I hadn't even thought of it until just now, when I typed that, but in backpacks is how the Tsarnaev brothers brought in their bombs in 2013. Our line-up spot was very near the marathon bombing memorial, and I had no thoughts yesterday about receiving any harm from members of the crowd or from the police, really, who seemed mostly busy with traffic. Arlington Street was being partly closed off as I walked past on the way to Boylston. A driver leaned out of her SUV and asked an officer if it was OK if she drove down just to drop someone off, not to park. No.

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[nosrednayduj]

Turns out you need to be logged into your X account in order to read the replies. Apparently I'm not logged in anymore, and probably I didn't accept some new terms, and I'm not going to just so I can read this thread. But the video in the first post showing the mostly empty bleachers is of course expected, at least by me.