Metro officers held their last full-scale training on crowd control before New Year's Eve. Police have been preparing all year for the estimated 300,000 people expected to be up and down the Las Vegas Strip.

The biggest change from last year to this year will be in where the police focus their attention. Both the Stardust and Frontier have closed. Police anticipate that part of the north end of Las Vegas Boulevard will be almost empty.

The police presence will also shift. Metro police do not think they will need to test this training on New Year's Eve, but no one wants to take any chances.

Hundreds of officers on the Mobile Field Force Team had their last full scale exercise to prepare them.

“This is practiced training so that if something happens, they do not have to make up a plan as they go,” said Officer Bill Cassell.

These officers will be spread out up and down Las Vegas Boulevard on New Year's Eve. Depending on the problem, all of the officers can be used as one unit or smaller groups of police could use this training to stop a situation from escalating.

There is a crowd control line formed by officers. In that drill, officers subdue an agitator and haul him away. The K-9 units are used to help protect officers from others in the crowd.

“They can meet whatever problem that is presented to them with the appropriate level of force,” said Officer Cassell.

Add to that the mounted police. Horses seem to be able to move crowds at will. Even the police volunteers naturally jump when faced with the hind legs.

“In people's minds, they just don't know what that animal might do so it's the unknown that kind of scares them,” said Officer Matt Burris of Metro Mounted Unit.

And the fact that the horses are between 1,300 and 1,500 pounds makes them that much more intimidating.

Used all together, Metro hopes to have no problems ringing in the new year.

Metro actually came up with the crowd control techniques themselves. The plan started forming after riots in Las Vegas because of the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police in 1991.

Email your comments to Reporter Edward Lawrence.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 14th, 2007 at 9:07 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.