Brazil officials said that the country is revising its security for next month's Rio Games in the wake of the attack in Nice, France, last week, having extra measures "imposed including intensified searches, increased security on streets, restrictions on traffic on some routes and increased safety cordon around some venues," according to Dom Phillips of the WASHINGTON POST. Rio had already planned to "deploy 85,000 police, military and members of a Brazil-style national guard called the National Force on Rio's streets." However, the scale of the "carnage caused by the truck used in the Nice attack prompted Brazil to reevaluate its security measures." Defense Minister Raul Jungmann said that Brazil had a "database of 500,000 people suspected of some association with terrorism, compiled with the help" of the U.S. and France. Jungmann said that spectators at the Games will be "checked against this database when they enter arenas." A third barrier will "involve 8,000 to 10,000 plainclothes security agents mingling with spectators and trying to identify anyone acting suspicious" (WASHINGTON POST, 7/17).
POOR TIMING: The WALL STREET JOURNAL's Will Connors notes the contract to "hire and train thousands of security screeners" for the Games was "awarded only two weeks ago to a tiny firm, raising concerns about keeping the Games safe amid global fears of terrorism." Brazil's government waited until July 1 to "award the contract to recruit and deploy thousands of private security guards needed to monitor X-ray machines and pat down spectators for weapons and other contraband outside Olympic venues." Meanwhile, the agency that issued the tender said that it had to "scrap plans to install 315 additional surveillance cameras at nine Olympic facilities after the contracting process failed" (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 7/18).
SAFE OR NOT SAFE? In DC, Sally Jenkins wrote the Rio Games will be "lucky to escape a large-scale disaster," and if it happens, "we all will wonder why we didn't do more to stop IOC officials from dragging us all down into their suck." Jenkins: "The truth is that a large-scale catastrophe is already happening in Rio." There is only one reason the IOC "doesn't do the prudent reasonable thing and postpone or move the Rio Games: money" (WASHINGTON POST, 7/16). In St. Paul, Tom Powers wrote, "Despite the dire warnings and gloomy predictions, I suspect that the Rio Olympics will be relatively trouble-free. The Games usually are" (ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS, 7/17).
WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN: In Chicago, Bergen & St. Clair noted next month, a "downtrodden Chicago will watch the Summer Games." However, for a city with a "hobbled public school system, a massive debt load and a soaring homicide rate, the prospect of spending an estimated" $4.8B in private and public money on an Olympic Games looks "far less appealing to many now than it did" in '09 when Chicago lost its bid. But the city's bid left a "pricey legacy for taxpayers." The city is "on the hook" for about $140M in principal and interest on the purchase of property for an Olympic Village to house athletes, and it was "saddled with costly, 10-year union contracts that were hammered out to ensure labor peace during the Games" (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 7/16).
