quad city airport additional screening arrive early 2018

In the end, the decision was made to not only install metal detectors and X-ray machines at the Capitol’s entrances, but also to create the Capitol Police, a force of 60 sworn officers. He said other measures, such as arming guards, would also be explored. Rod Blagojevich pledged that metal detectors would be installed at the Capitol entrances. That’s really the most common thing.”Īll of the previous pushback to the idea of increasing security at the Capitol dissolved after the murder of unarmed security guard William 'Bill' Wozniak in September 2004. “The only pushback you may get sometimes is they may not understand the rules for a rally. “In today’s society, you get (screening) at the airport, you get it at any other governmental building,” said Michael Geier, chief deputy director of the Secretary of State Police, which oversees Capitol security. If there were once concerns about turning the Capitol into a fortress, they have long since disappeared. Instead of unarmed security guards, entrances now also have armed officers with arrest powers stationed at them.

There is a separate division of the Secretary of State Police - the Capitol Police - that provides 24-7 security to the Capitol and the other 16 state buildings in the Capitol Complex. There are metal detectors and X-ray machines at the Capitol’s public entrances. That wasn’t the only time the issue of more security at the Capitol was raised, but each time concerns about cost and turning the Capitol into a fortress won out over added security. Then-Secretary of State George Ryan’s office said it didn’t see the need for them. He also said he’d received a death threat a month earlier and that a man had come to Springfield to carry out the threat. Capitol.īoland said the shootings in Washington made him think about his own safety in Springfield. He held the news conference shortly after a man shot and killed two guards and wounded a tourist at the U.S. Mike Boland held a news conference with two other Democratic representatives urging tighter security at the Illinois Capitol.īoland, of East Moline, called for installation of metal detectors at the Capitol’s entrances.

Quad city airport additional screening arrive early 2018