Policing Political Campaign Stops

By now you have no doubt seen something about Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani making a campaign appearance in Lakeland on Monday evening. The local press covered this political event as did Cat Carter over at blog.ylakeland.com. You can see numerous photos on Cat's blog, but you will see more at her Flickr photostream. I encourage you to take a few minutes to read her blog and then look at the numerous photos taken of this campaign stop in our town.

In more than one photo you will see several Lakeland Police officers. You might wonder if we were there to protect Mr. Giuliani. The answer is no, LPD was primarily responsible for crowd control and traffic safety rather than serving as personal security for Mr. Giuliani. Our Public Information Officer, Mr. Jack Gillen, as also there to assist with the media covering this event.

Candidates arrange for their own security details at this stage of the campaign process. Mr. Giuliani's advance team contacted us to make arrangements for this stop, but they maintained responsibility for protecting the candidate. Secret Service protection comes into the picture for major presidential and vice presidential candidates, and their spouses, within 120 days of a general presidential election. The exception to this being Mrs. Clinton who gets a Secret Service detail as the former First Lady of our nation.

Local police will generally be responsible for maintaining a peaceable assembly at these events, but we do not provide personal protection for the candidates. Further, we do not prohibit counter demonstrators from making an appearance. It's all about policing to ensure our First amendment rights.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere