Now, after all the planning, it's time to put the plan into action. Indeed there was a pretty huge police presence on the 16th Street mall yesterday (see vid below) and no doubt that was just the tip of the iceberg. I'm sure that the Rockies have played a large part in getting the security measures into place, thanks to last years World Series appearance by the team. Recall, with very short notice, the city was forced to put into place a full-scale security plan as the Nation's eyes turned to Denver for 2 games of the 2007 World Series. Then in November 2007, city leaders and experts from around they got together at the 07 ESRI Homeland Security Summit... this was our first chance to hear from insiders what they were planning for security at the DNC.



At the Summit I recall Denver mayor John Hickenlooper proudly noting how he felt the Denver area was the center of the GIS industry as it is home to some 250 private companies with 11,000 employees directly involved in GIS and geospatial technologies - Apparently the Denver area is also home to more ESRI business partners per capita than any other place. Denver's Director of Emergency Management, Justin DeMello also took to the stage at the Summit. He noted that GIS will be playing an important role in his office as coordination of efforts and data sharing will be crucial as there are some 36 functional groups involved in the planning of the DNC, this in addition to the Feds. It's going to be cool to once again see GIS take a leading role in this week's event, albeit running in the background as a silent giant behind the scenes - the key buzzword at the event was no doubt, Situational Awareness. For images from the 2007 summit see here... for some notes see here.