Law enforcement urges public to be alert at Luke Bryan concert in Audrain County

Law enforcement officers will have a strong presence at Saturday’s Luke Bryan concert in Audrain County but they are asking the public to also be alert.

“Folks have to understand this is not just a law enforcement matter and we really rely on the public to get us that information so we can react to it,” said Highway Patrol Sergeant Scott White. “They’re our eyes and ears to help us stop these situations from happening.”

Audrain County deputies and Highway Patrol troopers will be in and around the venue just off Audrain County Road 132, patrolling for trespassers and keeping a close watch on the concert itself.

They’ll also have extra equipment that they didn’t have last year, including specialized radios that will help police and fire agencies keep in better contact. According to White, the inter-operable radio communication can help decrease response times.

“When you’re at an event or a situation and you hear it over your radio, you’re getting the real time information,” he said. “You’re not getting that several seconds or maybe a minute afterwards as it’s relayed through a dispatch station.”

White said he wants the public to have an understanding that an incident like Sunday’s deadly shooting in Las Vegas could happen, and that will actually help people be ready to escape.

“When we hear accounts from people who have gone through situations like this, you always hear stories about how they thought it was a car backfiring, or they thought it was fireworks going off,” he said. “That’s because our brain is telling us that we don’t want to believe this is happening. So the sooner you can realize it is happening, the better you are and safer you’re going to be to get yourself out of that situation.”

Audrain County deputies had already decided to increase the number of law enforcement officers patrolling the concert before Sunday’s tragedy but Sheriff Matt Oller told ABC17 News on Thursday that they will reassess their plans and make security changes. He did not share any specifics.

“It’s definitely made us sit down and assess, especially the area this is going to be in and try to come up with plans to mitigate anything we could think of that could go wrong,” Oller said.