Gunfire echoed from a UCLA residence hall Wednesday morning as dozens of Los Angeles police officers converged on the building in a large-scale emergency drill staged at the future Olympic Village site for the 2028 Summer Games.
Hendrick Hall, the UCLA dormitory slated to house athletes during LA28, was transformed into the scene of a simulated terrorist attack, drawing SWAT teams, multiple police aircraft and scores of heavily equipped officers.
The five-hour exercise featured roughly 60 actors portraying panicked hostages, armed attackers and bloodied victims calling for help, giving police a realistic rehearsal for responding to a potential attack on the Olympic Village during the Games.
LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell said “everything fell into place” during the operation, which included a police helicopter lowering officers onto the dormitory roof.
“We focus on training for the Olympics, and certainly this is part of that, but it’s also training for every day, what could happen on a campus or on any other kind of a facility,” he added.
The training scenarios included active shooter situations and simulated explosions inside the eight-story residence hall, as SWAT officers in tactical gear rushed in with automatic weapons and battering rams.
McDonnell said the LAPD intends to do whatever is necessary to secure the Olympic Games, even as the city currently lacks enough officers and funding to fully cover the security demands of the event.
“This will be the Athletes Village for the Olympics in 2028,” McDonnell added. “A major focus is on making sure everything works just perfectly here.”
The 2028 Games will require a security force of about 7,500 officers per day — a number the LAPD, with just 8,550 officers in all, cannot meet on its own, McDonnell said.
To make up for the shortage, the LAPD will be supplemented by officers from departments around the state and even outside California, the chief noted.
But with 2,500 officers deployed to Olympic sites, just 6,000 will remain to secure the rest of the city.
“We’re going to have an awful lot of people in town for the Games,” McDonnell said. “Our goal is to be able to provide enhanced service everywhere,” he added.
The Olympics Special Events Unit, which plans security, has previously said LA will need to deploy about 6,700 officers across eight venues in 2028.
That operation would require another 700 to 800 patrol vehicles, equipment that is not fully funded. Even the funding that does exist comes with limits and delays.
An LA28 spokesperson previously told The California Post that it was “in the planning process with local, state, and federal partners to determine what security and other related costs for the LA28 Games will be.”
The 2008 Games are coming as the LAPD struggles to meet the needs of everyday policing.
McDonnell last month exclusively told The Post the department’s longstanding officer shortage has gone from bad to worse — losing hundreds of officers while police officials have tried bolster the beleaguered force by a staggering 4,000 more.
McDonnell said that the department’s uniformed force last month stood at about 8,550, down about 200 officers from February when the LAPD had more than 8,700 cops.
The chief also revealed that the LAPD currently needs about 12,500 cops to ideally safeguard the city, updating a previous estimate of about 12,000 officers that he cited to the Post in February.
The plan to secure the Games starts with a focus on protecting the venues themselves, said McDonnell.
Just beyond those focus points, a “yellow zone” surrounding the venues will be protected and heavily protected.
An additional area outside the yellow zones will see “extra coverage” based on the needs of the day.
“That is very labor intensive, as you can imagine, to be able to maintain that 24/7,” McDonnell said.
“We’re going to maintain a strong posture over the event areas for the duration of the entire Olympics, the two weeks in between, and then the Paralympic Games as well,” he explained. “It’s an 87-day period where that area will be locked down and secured.”
