EDMONTON—Security experts working in North America’s largest mall say it’s a “unique” place that requires specially trained agents patrolling the massive crowds that flock to it every year.

The mall is one of Edmonton’s biggest tourist attractions, bringing in an estimated 30 million patrons per year.

“Especially in this day and age, there’s a lot of potential threats that people aren’t always alert to and especially in Canada, people don’t like to think that stuff like attacks may happen here,” said Staff Sergeant Andy Lalonde, overseer of special operations at the mall.

Lalonde oversees a unit of four agents specially trained in “behaviour detection” that patrol the mall in plain clothes — only two are ever working at once. His unit also has four K-9s, Labradors known for their friendly demeanour and excellent explosive-detection abilities, Lalonde said.

He started the unit, known as the risk assessment and mitigation (RAM) team, and a K-9 unit in 2016 after he learned about it during training in the United States at West Edmonton’s sister mall, Mall of America, based in Minneapolis.

Lalonde adapted the program to be implemented in a Canadian setting where the West Edmonton Mall is as much a theme park as it is a commercial space and at a time when attacks can occur anywhere in the world and with a wide range of methods.

While the mall has never been targeted, Edmonton did experience an attack in September of last year when a man injured five people, hitting them with a vehicle and wielding a knife to stab people. The event reflected the unpredictable nature of attacks worldwide and in Canada, which experienced a shooting attack on a Quebec City mosque in January 2017 where six people died and 19 were injured, and a van attack on Toronto’s Yonge St. that left 10 people dead and 16 injured.

Countries around the world have heightened security around popular tourist attractions in light of terrorist attacks, such as the Eiffel Tower in Paris being surrounded by a 10-foot bulletproof glass wall, and cities using heavy equipment and barriers to prevent vehicle attacks on large crowds in public.

The mall is a particular challenge for security with its labyrinth of stores, water slides, roller coasters and other unconventional attractions, along with thousands of people.

The agents under Lalonde all have law enforcement backgrounds and most aspire to be police officers one day, he said. The behaviour-detection training he provides is something they can bring along with them in their careers.

“We look for suspicious indicators,” he said. “This could be something such as somebody who’s filming something that wouldn’t be associated with normal tourist behaviour or if they’re possibly videotaping or taking pictures of the structure, that is not in line with normal tourist behaviour. If they’re asking questions that aren’t normal with general tourist behaviour or general patron type behaviours.”

He said the four RAM agents don’t target patrons based on race, age, sex or any religious affiliation. However, if people are videotaping things or acting in a way that could be seen as planning, rehearsing or executing an attack, agents will either approach them for a conversation or notify Edmonton police.

It’s also not an airport or government building, said Lalonde, spaces that allow for more random questioning of the public who may be expecting that. At the mall, the agents approach their jobs with a customer service mindset, asking suspicious individuals if there is anything they can assist them with or what brought them to the mall — trying to be as accommodating as possible.

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They’ve never had an attack happen at the mall but do consider the Edmonton police partners and can call for immediate assistance in the case of one.

However, they have surveyed people who they deemed to be potential future threats. Initially, if someone is deemed a potential future threat, they will capture an image of the person on one of the mall’s many cameras. If the person comes back to the mall at a later date, they’ll have it on hand.

“We’ll have all the eyes that are working in the facility at that particular time looking for that individual,” he said. However, he said they’ve had “nothing of a serious nature.”

Cellphones and social media have also proven to be a particular challenge for the agents.

“It’s absolutely tough. I mean, that’s one of the topics we definitely talk about,” said Lalonde. “What does videotaping look like these days especially when everyone’s got their iPhone out? Lots of people FaceTime and share their experience at the mall with family members and whatnot.”

Every three months the mall practices lockdowns in the event of an attack where texts, emails and announcements are sent out to tenants of the mall, Lalonde said. Patrons and tenants are told to hide in back rooms, shut off the lights and await police assistance.

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The most serious threat of attack was in 2015, when the mall was threatened in a video put out by terrorist group al-Shabab, a jihadist fundamentalist organization based out of East Africa.

“We did spend approximately two and a half, almost three, months bringing in the Edmonton Police Service,” said director of mall security, Darren McAfee, of the time after the videotaped threat. “And it wasn’t so much to be aware to any threats that were existing, it was to ensure that the public had an understanding of safety still coming to this facility, because there was definitely a small dip in attendance shortly after that video.”

The attack never materialized and Lalonde said he’s happy with the work his team has done since being brought together.

“It just takes one person to come into the mall and, God forbid, do something to harm the public,” said Lalonde. “I really get engaged with trying to think of ways to best protect our facility.”

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