The Full Article if you wanted to read on.

Qwest Field security
Andy Rogers / P-I

As her son Grant, 7, looks on, Leslie Neighbor, left, is searched by Qwest Field security personnel before the Seahawks-Raiders game Aug. 30.
Unruly Qwest Field fans get timeout
Security ready for rowdiness

By AMY ROLPH
P-I REPORTER

The worst seat in Qwest Field isn't in the far reaches of the nosebleed section.

It's a cold, metal bench inside a windowless cell deep in the belly of the stadium. A wall plate outside the cell meekly reads "Interview Room," but don't be fooled by that.

This is where misbehaving Seahawks fans go for "timeouts."

Not many fans end up in that seat -- only about a half-dozen last season, Qwest security estimated. But landing there can really put a damper on someone's game-day spirit.

"Especially if you start getting rowdy early in the game," stadium Assistant General Manager Paul Schieck said with a small smile. "Then you miss the whole thing."

Football fans tend to be rowdier than most other sports fans, but Qwest Field staff members politely characterize Seahawks fan behavior as "passionate."

If that passion should lead to less-than-safe behavior -- say, throwing punches or lighting things on fire -- there are 650 event staffers, 250 contracted security workers and an undisclosed number of off-duty police officers ready to step in to squelch it before it gets out of hand.

All things considered, Seahawks fans tend to be tame compared with some football stadiums around the country, Schieck said.

"I talk to the folks in Philadelphia, where they arrest 100 people a game," he said.

Still, problems do pop up in Seattle's 67,000-capacity football stadium, which could comfortably seat the entire population of Renton with about 7,000 seats left over. Often those problems involve fans with clashing jersey colors.

For that reason, additional off-duty police officers are brought in when the Seahawks play teams whose fans have a reputation for being especially "passionate." The Aug. 30 preseason game against the Oakland Raiders, for instance, was cause for extra officers, who usually come from the Seattle Police Department and the King County Sheriff's Office.

Qwest officials declined to provide the exact number of off-duty officers at any given game, citing safety concerns, but David Young, another Qwest field assistant general manager, said the number tends to fluctuate on both sides of the 100 mark.

Accommodations such as holding cells seem to be reserved (at least in Seattle) for pigskin fans. Husky Stadium also has a room to detain troublemakers, though a spokesman for the team said it's used only a few times a season.

At Safeco Field, no holding cell exists, and stadium security usually doesn't have a need for one, Mariners spokesman Tim Hevly said.

"A football crowd and a baseball crowd are generally different animals," he said.

Stephen McDaniel, an associate professor in the University of Maryland's College of Health and Human Performance, said it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why football fans act out -- especially when you think of certain pre-game activities traditionally involving the bed of a truck.

"What's the factor that comes to mind when you think of fan behavior?" he asked. "That's right -- alcohol."

McDaniel said other things factor more subtly into how football fans act, including comradely emotions, pack mentality and even the music piped through the stadium.

Inebriated fans don't single-handedly account for the biggest security threat Qwest Field officials face on game day. The threat of bigger concern was hinted at last October when the stadium was one of seven NFL stadiums named in a Web site post about potential terrorist targets, suggesting that those locations would be attacked with a radiological "dirty bomb."

Though Homeland Security officials and FBI investigators quickly discredited the threat, Schieck said it would take more than a poorly thought-out scare to interfere with game day.

"For a game to be canceled, they'd have to absolutely know something was happening," he said.

But heightened fear of terrorist attacks still lingers around Qwest Field and other NFL stadiums, the most obvious reminder being the "100 percent bag check" signs propped up near entrances. Bag checks and pat-down searches will remain a part of game-day protocol throughout the NFL, much to the chagrin of some fans.

Two Seahawks season ticket holders sued the team and Qwest Field earlier this year on the grounds that frisking fans before entering the game was unconstitutional, violating the Fourth Amendment's protections against government searches without a warrant or suspicion. A federal judge ruled against the lawsuit in July, saying there wasn't sufficient evidence to ban the NFL policy, which took effect at the start of the 2005 season.

For the majority of fans, the brief pat-downs are the only encounter they'll have with the security staff, and most don't seem to mind.

"I'm all for safety," Janice Elmore said before the Aug. 30 game against Oakland. "I feel they search all the right places."

"I don't know if it's a good thing," said Jacalen Printz, another Seahawks fan on her way into the game. "I kind of wish they didn't have to do it."

IN CASE YOU DIDN'T KNOW:

# Fans can now text message "HAWK12" (429512) to alert Qwest Field staff about unruly behavior.

# Water is the only beverage allowed through Qwest Field security checks. The bottle must be full and sealed.