Here’s the New Orleans Times Picayune with an update on the Pelicans’ arena security situation, which received a slight wakeup call recently as a young kid was able to wander onto the court, hug a player and return to his seat:
An usher lost her job and a New Orleans police officer will no longer be hired by SMG to work security details for Pelicans games because of a breakdown that enabled a young boy to run onto the court to hug New York Knicks star Carmelo Anthony during a game last week at the Smoothie King Center.
Superdome/Smoothie King Center general manager Alan Freeman said the retractable tensile or crowd control barrier was not in place and the usher who should have been watching the aisle was not in place either.
”Then, there is a police officer stationed in that general area also, and he was not doing his job,” Freeman said. ”So essentially what happened there is that you get two people who were not doing their responsibilities and that led to a black eye for us as the building operator.
”So what we have done since then is first of all, we obviously replaced those two people who failed to do their jobs – the usher and the police officer.”