The room hums, both the technology and the personnel, in anticipation. The best of the New Jersey State Police (NJSP) has assembled in its Area Command Center (ACC) in Ewing, a corner kick away from Trenton, checking video feeds, analyzing data, receiving location reports and sharing information with other public safety agencies. Every screen represents the same question: what starts elsewhere, and how fast does it arrive here?
A bar brawl in Boston or a melee in Monterrey will be felt in East Rutherford.
Flickering images line the walls. On one screen, a pre-World Cup friendly between Colombia and Croatia in Orlando. On another, a drone track over the Meadowlands. On a third, a watch-party cluster building in Jersey City. Nearby, real-time maps show the likely locations of fan “base camps.” Transit data, which will show any platform crowding at train stations, judders on a large PC. Open-source chatter pours through in unrelenting streams.
Just weeks remain until Mexico and South Africa kick off the 2026 World Cup in Mexico City. Two days later, Brazil and Morocco will baptize East Rutherford, New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium as a host of the most popular sporting event in the world. Those weeks will flash by as law enforcement prepares the region for the largest and perhaps most boisterous event it has ever seen. Many have already invested two years in preparation.
It’s still not go-time. Not yet. Calm still prevails.
But no one here assumes it will stay that way.
The NJSP World Cup team has done event security countless times. This is different. It is global risk management, in real time. And by that measure, the games are already afoot.
A tournament that doesn’t reset
In the ACC, as in many other operations centers in the United States, Canada and Mexico, the World Cup is already underway.
Even while the 48 contending nations are still finalizing their teams, the threat environment itself is evolving rapidly. “How do we keep our people on point and focused with games elsewhere affecting games here?” asks Lieutenant Michael Doherty, unit head of the Threat Analysis Unit for the NJSP. He points to the possibility of politically sensitive matchups — such as Iran playing Egypt in a U.S. city — intersecting with events closer to home. “That could spill over into what we’re dealing with here in New Jersey.”
Doherty acknowledges the broader shift: “The world is a much smaller place than it was in 1994,” the last time the United States hosted the World Cup. “Social media, cell phones, AI. They amplify and accelerate everything.”
The World Cup stretches across weeks, cities and borders. Matches will go on somewhere in the United States, Canada and Mexico almost constantly. For law enforcement, that means no reset between events, no clean handoffs and no quiet days to regroup.
New Jersey hosts nine matches. That is only a small part of the workload. The rest is keeping order and maintaining safety around the event’s entire ecosystem: transportation hubs, training sites, hotels, bars, restaurants, fan rallying spots, power and water infrastructure and so on. Many of the fans will be coming from New York, so NJSP collaborates closely with authorities from its neighbor to the north.
At the federal level, the scale is just as imposing. “It’s like having 78 Super Bowls over 40 days,” says Andrew Giuliani, executive director of the White House Task Force for the World Cup.
But even that analogy falls short, Giuliani concedes. “What makes this different is persistence,” Giuliani says. “There’s no reset. No downtime. The operational tempo is continuous, and the threat picture is constantly evolving.”
From his base at the Department of Homeland Security headquarters, Giuliani and his team are orchestrating what may be the most complex domestic security effort in modern U.S. history, integrating federal agencies, state and local partners, international intelligence services, private-sector stakeholders and, of course, FIFA into a unified framework. “This is a whole-of-nation effort,” he says. “Success depends on how well we connect — not just systems, but people.”
A match involving rival national teams can trigger demonstrations thousands of miles from the stadium. A loss overseas can ripple through diaspora communities.
To widen the aperture, NJSP plans to leverage the NYPD’s global Sentry network, including officers stationed in cities such as London, Paris, Bogotá and Tel Aviv. This nexus gives New York and New Jersey visibility into incidents before supporters ever board a plane.
What’s more, July 4 marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, bringing with it scores of official events and countless unofficial celebrations across the United States. Managing the overexuberance that comes with the emotions of the nation’s birthday adds to law enforcement’s responsibilities.
Intelligence to the edge
If there is a single defining challenge, it is this: getting the right intelligence to the right person at the right time.
G.B. Jones, FIFA World Cup 2026’s chief safety and security officer, and his team must turn a global stream of signals into something a transit officer, stadium supervisor or patrol commander can use in real time. He credits the White House Task Force for its robust support. “They have been strong allies for us in the creation of the International Police Cooperation Center, and they have been great conveners of federal partners across the U.S. intelligence community,” Jones says. FIFA also leverages strong relationships with Interpol, Europol, the Council of Europe, football confederations and other allies for intelligence.
Intelligence must reach the stadiums, but also well beyond. Transit hubs compress large numbers of people into tight spaces. Hotels attract crowds looking to catch a glimpse of their favorite — or most reviled — players. Fan zones expand the footprint well beyond the ticketed venue. Watch parties appear with little notice and balloon quickly.
As Giuliani puts it, “You’re not securing a stadium. You’re securing an ecosystem.”
The challenge blurs the traditional line between crowd management and national security. Some groups are simply there to celebrate. Others arrive with a history, a grievance or a prearranged plan to collide.
One planning scenario mapped multiple gatherings within a few blocks of a team hotel: hundreds of people at each location, limited staffing nearby and no formal perimeter. Conditions shifted quickly.
To counter that, planners have focused heavily on movement. “I walked the routes myself,” NJSP Lieutenant Colonel Dave Sierotowicz says. “We timed it.”
Speaking of timing, New Jersey has leaned into brevity, speed and efficiency.
Analysts are producing short, operational summaries for each national team. “We’re not writing novels,” says Doherty. “We’re delivering recognition.” These data sheets include team colors and mascots, fan behavior, rivalries, past incidents, apparel and activity, among other attributes. Officers pull up these data sheets on their phones with a QR code. Paper-stuffed binders are no longer fit for purpose. Long briefings are out. The focus is on quickly and accurately knowing enough to recognize what matters.
“We looked at each team playing here — the fan base, prior incidents, even things like flags, marches and pyrotechnics,” Doherty says. “We’re asking: what does this look like on the ground?”
Managing the choke points
“The only way in and out of the stadium will be mass transit,” Doherty notes. “You could have 80,000 people on a platform, rival fans squeezed together. Imagine what could happen.”
Working with NJ Transit, law enforcement has been synchronizing train arrivals and departures to prevent dangerous crowd buildup. “We made sure trains were coming at the right intervals,” Lieutenant Colonel Sierotowicz says. “No backups.”
Stadium operations bring additional complexity. “Football fans know where they’re going,” especially season-ticket holders, notes Sergeant First Class Brian Murphy, who oversees stadium security for the NJSP. “World Cup fans don’t.”
That gap shows up in movement and communication. “We’re planning messaging in multiple languages,” Murphy adds. “We even brought in translation devices.” For example, a second pedestrian bridge has been built to link MetLife Stadium to the American Dream mall and relieve traffic on the original span. Authorities plan to use visual messaging in various languages to communicate with the crowd.
The same multilingual discipline carries into emergencies, where pre-scripted evacuation messages can be pushed simultaneously to scoreboards, PA systems and mobile alerts.
Some of the mobility planning is built around separation, not speed. Authorities are sequencing mass-transit arrivals and even considering holding certain supporter groups inside the stadium after the match to keep historically violent fan bases from converging on the bridge.
The intelligence network extends well beyond government. Increasingly, hotels, transportation providers, stadium operators and retail establishments are functioning as frontline sensors. They often detect unusual bookings, route changes or coordinated movement before those signals enter formal law enforcement channels. Giuliani’s team and NJSP alike describe this as one of the most significant evolutions in major-event policing: the private sector is no longer adjacent to security. It is part of the security architecture.
What the rehearsal made clear
Planning assumptions have already been tested under real conditions. The 2025 Club World Cup, held last summer, offered a preview. It also forced some adjustments.
Thirty-two teams from 16 countries squared off at stadiums in 11 U.S. cities, including nine matches at MetLife Stadium, which hosted the final. Base camps sprang up near every stadium, including four in New Jersey.
Crowds gathered outside team hotels in larger numbers than expected. Fan marches, organized online, materialized quickly, sometimes with little notice. In one case, international partners flagged known troublemakers traveling to a match, and NJSP authorities were alerted. Fearing a parade of carousing, mischief and intimidation, mounted officers met them at their departure point, set a route, laid down ground rules and walked them to the stadium. The mounted escort defused what could have become a far less orderly procession.
Other lessons were less visible. Communications strained under pressure. Cell networks slowed. Radios dropped off in places they were expected to reach.
Teams improvised, opening shared channels and working around the gaps.
But the rehearsals didn’t stop at the World Cup. Learning continues at pre-tournament qualifiers. Speaking to us from a qualifying match in Guadalajara, FIFA’s Jones says such games have been “a terrific opportunity to confirm security processes and protocols for the delivery of safety, security and service in Mexico during the FIFA World Cup. Integration between the FIFA 26 office in Mexico and our private-sector and public safety partners is extraordinarily strong.”
Security is looking up
One of the most dynamic threat vectors hovers above the crowds.
New Jersey police are no strangers to drones. November and December of 2024 saw a rash of mysterious aerial sightings over the state. Drones the size of SUVs were reported over Picatinny Arsenal, Naval Weapons Station Earle, President Trump’s Bedminster golf course and the Salem Nuclear Power Plant, as well as over highways, farms and residential communities. Coastal county officials reported drone swarms arriving from the Atlantic Ocean.
And for several days starting March 9, Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana experienced several unauthorized drone incursions that varied in duration and number.
“Drones today are capable of causing significant chaos and danger at a minimal price point,” says David Grantham, the former chief deputy of intelligence and technology at the Tarrant County, Texas, Sheriff’s Department, where he oversaw drone technology, Grantham, now a senior advisor to Draganfly, adds that law enforcement “is aware of the threat and is working actively to combat it.”
It takes a great deal of money and coordination to protect the games. It takes a cheap drone and a bag of powder to disrupt them. NJSP is aware of the threat and is working to mitigate it.
A commercially available drone can lift off well outside the perimeter and travel a couple of miles without drawing attention. The operator may never come into view. The payload does not need to be large to cause disruption. In a packed crowd, confusion spreads quickly.
“At the base level, the goal is to find the operator,” McCormick adds. “They can be miles away.”
Drone-detection tools, including passive RF detection, are improving.
Response coordination is a work in progress. Local, state and national authorities are in the process of clarifying counter-drone processes from detection to response. The issue shows up in planning meetings and field exercises alike: who sees it, who owns it and who acts. In a December 2025 press release, the White House Task Force clarified the situation by noting that the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act “provides state and local authorities with the legal authority to track and mitigate UAS that pose credible threats to relevant facilities and events.” The Task Force noted that previous laws restricted drone interdiction to federal law enforcement.
The most dreaded scenario is a drone swarm operating via cellular networks. What once belonged to overseas battlefields has moved into the consumer marketplace, shrinking the gap between nuisance technology and mass disruption. Evidence of their effectiveness and lethality is readily available in theaters of global conflict ranging from Ukraine and Russia to Iran, Gaza, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle East. Authorities are preparing for that worst-case scenario by procuring tools that can disable their networks. The question is not the will or competency of authorities to address drone swarms, but rather the funding to obtain or develop the technology to address this rapidly evolving threat.
One complicating wrinkle is FIFA’s use of drones to enhance the viewing experience for World Cup fans at home. Previously unobtainable views of athletes speeding down mountain slopes, over ski jumps and around speed-skating ovals revolutionized television coverage of the 2026 Winter Olympics, and the World Cup is expected to leverage the same technology. The challenge becomes distinguishing between friendly and hostile drones.
Yet FIFA’s Jones, a licensed commercial drone pilot and rated private pilot himself, says that broadcast drone use has been included in safety plans. “Not only are we collaborating with public and private partners on counter-drone plans,” he says, “but we are also working with public and private partners to integrate drones safely into the match day environment for safety and security, broadcast and other uses.”
Building a shared view
The screens in the operating center in Trenton are only as useful as the data architecture beneath them.
To that end, New Jersey has pushed toward a single operating picture that updates as conditions change. Eighteen months ago, the state lacked a common operating system. Officials raced to get one in place before the Club World Cup, and it now includes data sets for every relevant site, including cameras and other sensors on critical infrastructure such as railways, roadways and airports.
“All of our systems can talk to each other now,” says Frankie Millheim, the state’s GIS coordinator. “My ultimate goal is to provide a single pane of glass for individuals in the field: a single link, website or page on their phone.”
Data flows in from officers, partner agencies and open sources. Analysts review it, map it and push it back out. The goal is to keep everyone looking at the same information at the same time.
“If I send you a PDF, it’s already out of date,” Millheim notes.
A live system carries more weight.
“If a team is staying in Jersey City and we see five watch parties pop up within a few blocks, we can estimate the crowd — maybe 1,200 people — and see we only have two officers there,” Millheim explains. “Then we adjust.”
Static reports don’t hold up in that environment. By the time they circulate, something has already changed.
Coordination over control
The operation pulls in hundreds of organizations: law enforcement, fire, EMS, federal agencies, international intelligence agencies and private partners. No single group runs the whole thing.
“Our biggest challenge is coordination and communication,” Lieutenant Colonel Sierotowicz explains. “We’re working with more than 400 partner agencies. The question is: are we aligned?”
That question shapes how decisions get made.
“We don’t come in saying we’re in charge,” he continues. “We come in asking how we’re going to work together.”
What stands out is not only capability, but culture. From the earliest stages of planning, NJSP worked deliberately to ensure county and municipal agencies were fully integrated into the operation. Shared briefings, joint exercises and common intelligence loops turned inclusion into an operational discipline rather than a courtesy.
Chief John R. Russo of the Rutherford Police Department can attest to that. “From a local level, the collaboration during law enforcement’s preparation phase for FIFA has been at a scale never before seen,” he says. “I am confident that our state police’s leadership and the collaboration at all levels will prove a successful model for future large-scale events.”
“This is a whole-of-nation effort,” adds Giuliani. “Success depends on how well we connect — both systems and people.”
In fact, NJSP leaders have consistently commended Giuliani’s task force for its coordination, transparency, timeliness and support.
Instead of centralizing control, authorities are distributing capability, ensuring that the right people at every level have access to real-time information and a clear operational picture.
The most durable legacy of the World Cup may not be a stadium or a command center, but a policing model. More than 400 agencies, multiple countries, private-sector partners and international intelligence services are being forced into a common rhythm. The lessons in shared situational awareness, distributed capability and cross-sector trust will likely outlast the tournament itself, setting a benchmark for how modern policing handles globally networked risk.
What success looks like
If everything goes well, the focus stays on the matches.
“Success is if, at the end of the tournament, we’re only talking about what happened on the field,” Giuliani says.
Inside the operations center, the screens will keep changing. Alerts will come and go. Most will lead nowhere. That is not failure. It is the system working as intended. In a tournament defined by global connectivity and rapidly mutating risk, the quiet victories will be measured not only in safe stadiums, but in crises that never materialize.
Perhaps NJSP Acting Superintendent Jeanne Hengemuhle puts it best: “Security is a team sport, and for FIFA World Cup 26, the New Jersey State Police has built a unified front with our partners at every level. Together, we are prepared to meet this global moment, balancing elite security with the hospitable spirit that defines our state.”
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