Indeed, the L.A. Police Department has spent scores of person-hours handling the protocols involved in welcoming hundreds of cops, troopers, Rangers and Secret Service agents from every corner of the country. The California Highway Patrol has an entire office devoted to dignitary motorcades. True, big events have a way of drawing the attention of terrorists, agitators and creepy stalkers of every variety. Few people could quarrel with the need to safeguard a gathering of the nation's political leaders. But this can't possibly be all about safety.
Nobody involved in security seems willing to talk about it.
Pasquariello ventured two sentences and signed off brusquely. The highway patrol didn't answer calls. Security officials for the convention organizing committee decided they could not explain themselves without endangering the leaders of the republic. The large entourages of former mayor Marion S. Barry were a constant story, and her boss is eager to avoid that fate. Their advice, in this case, was two guards for the mayor, one for the mayor's wife, a security advance man and a driver.