How OKC Police are preparing for Memorial Marathon weekend

Thousands of people are expected to be in attendance for the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon, and Oklahoma City Police are working in advance to make sure security is at the top of everyone's minds.

OCPD Cpt. Audrea George with Oklahoma City's Special Event Unit joined the news 9 team Wednesday morning to talk more about how the department will keep others safe.

Q: You've been working on security plans for a year now, what do you want people to know?

A: So the biggest thing I want everyone to remember is that there are going to be a lot of road closures, and they occur pretty early. So plan out your route, the different routes of the marathon. So, look at those plan ahead, make sure you have plenty of time to get where you need to go, so that you're not getting frustrated. 

Q: How do you enforce those closed intersections that are winding through the city?

A: So the quarter marathon or the quarter route also increased, for officer numbers, by about 20. We really were struggling, trying to make sure we had everything safe, so [Oklahoma Highway Patrol] was great. They offered up officers to help me out, and so OHP will be assisting us this year. We have to remember also that it's 26.2 miles. So we can't have officers on every intersection. We really rely on our course marshals to help us with that, and that's the biggest thing I want people to remember. They are volunteers. They are giving their time to assist with the marathon, to make sure it's safe, so please, when you come upon the road closures, be kind to everyone, the officers and the volunteers. They're just there trying to make sure the event is safe for everybody, the participants and the people coming out to watch, and also the people who are just trying to navigate to their next location.

Q: The crowds are expected to be quite large, and crowd control is always a big thing. Is there anything you guys will be doing extra this year to kind of manage the crowds?

A: We did add a lot of officers. We always have a lot of officers, but we've added even more. The biggest thing that we need everybody to remember is when you come Downtown, just please be mindful of what the event is. We would prefer that there aren't backpacks, drones, dogs on the course, bikes, scooters, any of those items. Please leave those behind, because we are trying to keep everything safe, and so these are items that we are asking people not to bring to the Downtown area.

George also said OCPD will be using drones during the event, so any drones you do see are most likely being operated by the department.

"No one else should be flying around, no one else," George said. "We do have authorized drones on the course, and we're using our drones as first responders. So if something happens, a suspicious package, a suspicious person, we can automatically send that drone to the area we're getting."