Earlier this month, the Maryland Jockey Club announced a new security policy banning backpacks and duffel bags from being brought into Pimlico Race Course for the 138th running of the Preakness Stakes, the second leg of horse racing’s Triple Crown. Officials said the policy, which will also prohibit laser pointers and cameras with lenses more than 6 inches long, was influenced by last month’s bombings at the Boston Marathon, which killed three people and injured more than 200 others. Only clear coolers will be allowed in the grandstands and infield during the event, which will take place on Saturday.

In addition to these measures, Lt. Samuel Hood III, director of the Baltimore Police Department’s CitiWatch video surveillance network, said that everyone entering the racetrack grounds will also be searched due to the high number of attendees. According to Hood, nearly 120,000 attended last year’s event and this year’s race is expected to draw 150,000.

“We want to make sure everyone has a safe environment and a festive atmosphere for the second jewel of the Triple Crown,” says Hood. “In addition to that, we have just put in more proactive, preventative measures where we will have bomb technicians on scene as vehicles come in and out because of the venue – horses trailers and all of this other equipment – will be checked prior to entering the grounds.”

Hood added that dignitaries, who were chauffeured by retired police officers in previous years, will also be checked before they can enter the venue. Video surveillance will also play a significant role in keeping the event safe for fans as Hood indicated that they have installed cameras in and around the racetrack to monitor the entire infield and grandstand areas.

“These cameras will come back to the CitiWatch platform, so they’re at our level,” says Hood. “They have analytics in them, pre-programmable boards and we record for 28 days so if we have an incident like the Boston bombing, we’re able to in real-time backtrack and identify the origin of the incident. We put in a very comprehensive camera system. We put them in up high, but we also put them in at ground level so we have several dimensions of security that we can see and, of course, at all access points because that way you’re definitely going to see whoever is moving inside the perimeter.”

The surveillance cameras also act as a force multiplier, according to Hood, enabling authorities to quickly determine which incidents require an additional response. “Using real-time situational awareness with the cameras, we’re able to identify what is a call for service and what isn’t a call for service and then what resource (should be used),” Hood added. “You might have a call for service that comes to the police department and it’s actually someone who has had too much sun and they may be having a health situation, so we can send over emergency medical assistance. Working out of one common operating picture, we’re able to get the right resources to the right person in real-time.”

Hood says one of the biggest challenges with securing an event like the Preakness, however, is the size and scope of the venue. “The biggest part is the fact that you have people from all over the world. You have these different horses that come in over several different days you have to check and then you have the barns and you have the parking itself because of the sheer number of individuals,” Hood explained. “Then you have the physical security of electricity, water and even vendors coming in and out, all of that has to be checked.”

Despite the long tradition of the race, Hood said the biggest security incident they’ve had at the Preakness to date is an individual who ran onto the racetrack several years ago. However, Hood said the Maryland Jockey Club has done a phenomenal job of turning the Preakness into an upscale event with numerous live entertainment acts to capture the attention of the crowds. “It has changed,” says Hood. “The event itself has become more of a very festive atmosphere than a party atmosphere.”

Hood said that Baltimore police are working in close cooperation with the Maryland Jockey Club in providing security for the event at their request as they want to ensure that they are doing everything possible to be proactive when it comes to safety. Hood said that the Baltimore Police Department works with a host of partners to keep the race safe including; DHS; FBI; ATF; Maryland State Police; the National Guard; and, the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA). “It’s a whole community approach,” says Hood. “These large-scale events help us prepare for everyday situations.”

Perhaps one of the few communities in the U.S. that can identify with the grief being experienced currently by the families of the victims in the shooting massacre that claimed the lives of 20 children and six adults last week at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. are those of the areas surrounding Columbine High School in Colorado. On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold went on a shooting rampage at the school, killing 12 students, one teacher and wounding 23 others.

According to Guy Grace, director of security and emergency planning for nearby Littleton Public Schools, the Columbine massacre changed not just school security, but life in their community forever. “A lot of those families live in our communities, so Columbine is obviously influencing a lot of the practices we have put in place though the years,” Grace said.

Having witnessed first-hand the devastation that a shooting of this magnitude can have on a community, Grace said that moving forward is going to be difficult for years to come in Newtown.

“It’s going to be forever. Some people say that recovery begins as soon as the incident happens, but right now, there’s still a lot of shock and dismay,” he said. “As I recall being in Littleton in 1999, there was a state of fear and a state of panic that lasted for many weeks and many months. Anything that happened in the community, any other tragedies were just magnified by the fact that that took place. Anytime that anniversary comes up, the community there is going to have to think about that anniversary and they’re going to always be watchful. April 20 for us in Littleton – this whole city and state – we’re always constantly on alert for that date more so than any other and that’s going to be the same for them.”

In the aftermath of last week’s shooting, Grace said that many parents have called to inquire about the safety and access control measures in place in Littleton.

“The situation in Connecticut is going to have a dramatic effect upon the things that we do in security and crisis management,” he explained. “Right now, a lot of the parents are asking us to increase our barriers, initiating different types of access control such as buzz-in or making sure we put up steel doors and things like that. Basically, we’re getting a bunch of people calling in asking us to do things here and there, so we’re looking at those things. But obviously we’re evaluating and a lot of those (measures) cost a lot money, so we look at what we have existing in our physical security information management system, access control system and what we’re going to do to integrate that and different technologies.”

According to Grace, crisis management plans at all schools have been influenced by the Columbine massacre for many years. Despite the horrific tragedy in Newtown, Grace believes that authorities have prevented many shootings in the years since Columbine, but now there is a new threat that schools have to take into account.

“The good news is that schools have really done things with their physical security, but they’ve also concentrated on their crisis management and their emergency planning applications,” Grace added. “What has happened is, those things are being thwarted, but now what we’re seeing is a threat from adults or people that have nothing to do with the school or have mental illness and they do come to the schools and those are the types of things we have to put up the barriers to stop.”

One thing that Grace said schools need to do is to make sure that they’re “awareness” is up with regards to any suspicious activity or people around a building as many shooters will often stake out a facility prior to an attack. While some people have immediately pushed for revised gun control laws in the wake of this shooting, Grace said that there has also been a lot of “armchair quarterbacking” about this incident and that there really needs to be a focus on crisis and mental health monitoring.

“I’m hoping that when legislators go back to their sessions and start talking about this, that they really do focus on the mental health and crisis response,” he said. “So, if somebody is acting out in the community, that there’s something where we all can come up with best practices in the community to say ‘wow, this person is talking about violence.’ Because if you look at these school shooters, you look at James Holmes (the accused Aurora, Colo. movie theater shooter)… they were all showing signs. These are the people that need to be on our radar.”

The shooting massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. on Friday that left 27 people dead, including 20 children, will shape the very foundation of school security across the country moving forward, according to one prominent school security expert.

Paul Timm, who serves as president of Illinois-based school security consulting firm RETA Security, says he has “no doubt” that this massacre will garner attention from federal lawmakers and that schools nationwide will be forced to look at their security measures in a completely new way.

Among the most important things that Timm believes schools will look at in the aftermath of this shooting is access control, which he says has been glossed over for too long. “The name of the game is always going to be access control. Our access control procedures must be better,” he said.

Timm said there are two ways in which schools can immediately improve access control; implementing lock vestibules (a small room or hall between the main entrance and building interior) at a school’s main entrance and by deploying visitor management software systems.

Although some schools have used vestibules for years as a way to block out inclement weather, Timm said they could also be used as a way of blocking entrance to a school, making visitors show identification and state a purpose for their presence at the facility. Visitor management systems could then be used check a visitor’s name against sex offender registries, as well as other databases that show whether or not a person has been recently terminated, has a restraining order against them and other information along those lines.

In addition, Timm says that this will undoubtedly impact the way that schools are designed, built and retrofitted moving forward. “Architects are going to change the way they’re designing buildings,” he said, adding that this can already be seen in some schools where offices have been strategically placed at the main entrance.

While some people may call for an immediate increase in security manpower and guards in schools, Timm says that unfortunately, even incidents like this have a tendency to fade from the consciousness of decision makers when they’re faced with budget realities. That’s not to say, however, that Timm doesn’t think having more resource officers is a bad idea. “If I could put a school resource officer in every school building in America I would do it,” he said.

According to Timm, this shooting is likely spur lawmakers into reallocating or increasing funding for several grant programs that had been scaled back in recent years: The Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools (REMS) Grant from the U.S. Department of Education which provides funds to schools to establish emergency management plans, and the COPS Secure Our Schools (SOS) grants from the U.S. Department of Justice that gives funds to state and local governments to improve school safety.

Robert Lang, assistant vice president for strategic security and safety at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, says he believes this massacre has opened peoples’ eyes to the fact that mass shootings are about more than police response and that is has also shined a light on the important roles that teachers and other school personnel play during active shooter incidents. “Everyone, all teachers, all professors are responsible for their individual students and to take action rather than sit around and wait for someone to tell them what to do,” said Lang.

Some of the questions that Lang said will arise from this will focus what people should do between the time that a shooting begins and the police arrive. Do they have a way of alerting others to what’s going on inside the building?  Once you “shelter-in” a location, do you hide in a corner together or spread out?

“I think that’s the kind of the philosophy that we need to look at. Shutting the lights off, locking the doors and spreading out,” explained Lang.

Another question that Lang said school security managers should be asking is how teachers and other staff members should respond if a shooter is able to make their way inside of a classroom where the lights have already been turned off and the door has been locked.

“I think we’ve stopped with the education at that point and we have said ‘ok, the first responders will show up,’” he said. “This is another example of where (the shooting) was over before the first responders showed up. You’re on your own for those first couple of minutes, so you need to have all the tools available for not just awareness that this is taking place, but what to do if you’re actually confronted with the person.”

Moving forward, Lang said schools across the country will undoubtedly look at their security policies and procedures to see where changes need to be made. Lang also believes that lawmakers will push for active shooter drill mandates to help schools be better prepared for a mass shooting.

“I think we’re going to see some additional directives coming out that say you must hold drills, active shooter drills once a year or whatever period of time it is,” Lang said. “I think you’re going to see some mandates coming out, not just on fire drill participation for universities, but you’re going to see active shooter drills, hazardous material drills and all of those things that seem to be occurring more and more.”

Additionally, Lang said that there will probably be more loosening of restrictions when it comes to mental health reporting and the sharing of that information with key personnel on a school campus.

“FERPA (the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) was reinterpreted some years back,” according to Lang. “Originally, it didn’t not allow any of the psychological information that universities would have from their medical people or psychological services people to be shared with anyone else on the campus. That has now been reinterpreted to mean that you can share it with certain entities, especially during an emergency, but to be able to do some prevention methods as well.”

Despite other high-profile mass shootings in schools, such as Columbine and Virginia Tech, Timm said that the nature of the Newtown rampage and the fact that small children were targeted will spur more action than ever before.

“It’s heartbreaking and because it’s heartbreaking, there will probably be a louder cry for change to be made,” Timm said.

The Urban Institute, a research institute focused on public policy and government and initiated by President Johnson, released a report last week evaluating the impact of video surveillance cameras on crime control and crime prevention.

The abstract of the report, titled “Evaluating the Use of Public Surveillance Cameras for Crime Control and Prevention” is as follows:

“This report summarizes the results of an evaluation of public surveillance systems in Baltimore, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., examining how systems in each of these jurisdictions were selected and implemented and assessing the degree to which they achieved their intended crime prevention impact. The study also explored whether surveillance cameras displaced crime or yielded a diffusion of benefits to areas just beyond the cameras reach, and included a cost-benefit analysis component in two of the three study sites. Findings indicate that in places where cameras were sufficiently concentrated and routinely monitored by trained staff, the impact on crime was significant and cost-beneficial, with no evidence of crime displacement.”

The Urban Institute has published the entire research in PDF format, available for download here.