ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. (WGN) — Three days after the Chicago Bears announced their intent to prioritize the Arlington Heights stadium project, the northwest suburban village kept the wheels moving by starting to lay the groundwork for staffing an NFL game.
Staffing a professional football game with police officers, EMTs and firefighters is no small task, especially if the Bears make the move northwest out of the city.
According to a report village trustees recently received, it would take roughly 250 police officers to fully staff an NFL game. The Arlington Heights Police Department (AHPD) currently employs 109 officers in total.
“There’s typically hundreds of officers—that being duty officers, off-duty officers—from other suburban departments,” said Thomas Weitzel, who spent 13 years as West Suburban Riverside’s Chief of Police. “There’s no doubt that they’d have to rely on other departments, state police and offer those positions, which would also be reimbursed by the Bears in overtime.”
NFL funding through the Bears would also pay for private ambulances to cover any injuries that happen inside the Arlington Heights stadium, but the village would be solely responsible for any first responders needed outside of the stadium.
This has led to some village trustees pushing for a new fire station built closer to the stadium’s property. As of Monday, the next closest fire station is a six-minute ambulance ride away.
“They may have to build a new fire station, for sure, but they can also contract with private ambulance services to stage their ambulances in the parking lot at the football facility,” Weitzel said.
Village trustees who spoke with WGN TV News suggested the Bears could donate a portion of land on their 326-acre development site to build a new fire station.
They also said that Arlington Heights’ police and fire chiefs have spoken with other suburban departments around the country who have NFL stadiums in their jurisdiction—namely, Arlington, Texas (Dallas Cowboys), Foxborough, Massachusetts (New England Patriots) and Inglewood, California (Los Angeles Rams and Chargers).
The goal of those conversations was to gain a better understanding of what’s to come.
“The chief’s going to have to assign one of his commanders to be in charge of that facility … That’s a year-round job. It’s not just when the Bears would be playing, because my understanding is that it may be a concert venue,” Weitzel said. “They’re going to have to have somebody on top of their game, and they’re going to have to have a lot of training, and they’re going to have to do practice runs.”
Weitzel also suggested AHPD could form what’s known as an auxiliary police force to cover NFL games. A similar police force in Rosemont is already in place to cover Allstate Arena events.