San Francisco readies security blanket for Olympic torch

AFP
Monday, April 7, 2008

An unprecedented security blanket will be draped across San Francisco for the US leg of the Olympic flame's global relay here Wednesday amid worldwide condemnation of China's crackdown in Tibet and its human rights record ahead of the summer games in Beijing.

Several hundred police officers are expected to line the streets for the appearance of the torch, which has been trailed by protesters since it was lit in Greece a week ago at the start of a 85,000-mile, 21-country journey.

A San Francisco Police Department spokesman said security for the relay would be noticeably tighter than previous appearances of the torch in the city in 1992 and 1996.

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"I can confirm that we are taking additional and different security measures to those that we have used in for past torch runs in San Francisco," Sergeant Neville Gittens told AFP.

Although he would not reveal the numbers of police to be deployed on Wednesday, Gittens added: "We are going to have a lot more than in the past because of all the events surrounding the torch."

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