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Security Boost Planned For New Orleans Pride LGBT Events

New Orleans Mayor's Office

Security is beefing up ahead of the New Orleans gay pride celebrations this weekend. The popular LGBT event in the French Quarter comes a week after the mass shooting at an Orlando nightclub popular with that community.  Officials are asking the public to help police protect the crowds.

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu lined up with federal and state law enforcement officials along with health and community leaders to review security plans.

Landrieu says people should be alert for something suspicious and report it to police. He says it has worked in past Mardi Gras to get guns off the streets.

“Almost all of those occur because somebody saw something that looked weird to them – bulges, something that gave them an indication that the person might hide a concealed weapon and they were approached in the appropriate way and those weapons were seized from them," Landrieu said.

State Police Major Carl Saizan says people can often tell something’s wrong just by the way a person is behaving.

“We had last year, on Bourbon Street, a police officer from LAPD, saw three individuals staying in a corner. And in her training and experience, she saw the way they were posturing themselves. She brought it to our attention.  We addressed it. All three individuals were carrying illegally concealed weapons, and we were able to take all three into custody and seize those weapons," Saizan said.

New Orleans Police Superintendent Michael Harrison says there will be a large police presence throughout the weekend.

Eileen is a news reporter and producer for WWNO. She researches, reports and produces the local daily news items. Eileen relocated to New Orleans in 2008 after working as a writer and producer with the Associated Press in Washington, D.C. for seven years.

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