His View: Who is responsible for security at public events?

“What we are going to look at, is that the event and the organizers did everything they can, and did everything they could do, to offer a safe environment for all of the people downtown” is a quotation from attorney Scot Goldberg as published on Wink News on Oct. 21, 2015. This was stated in the wake of shooting at ZombiCon which is an event that was held annually in Fort Myers, Fla.

The event was in its ninth year. It was an event that was promoted by the organization Pushing Daizies. ZombiCon is a nonprofit event that supports Pushing Daizies, an art and music outreach organization according to an old post on their Facebook page that was posted prior to the 2015 shooting.

Fort Myers, in 2015, had approximately 74,000 residents. In 2018, they had 192 sworn officers with a need for 61 more officers, according to a news article. To put it in some sort of perspective, Fort Myers is about two times larger than Pullman. The ZombiCon event was pulling in nearly 20,000 event goers. So it is a larger town, with a larger police force and a smaller event, by ratio, than a WSU football game.