“We call it crowd management,” said one of the Los Angeles police officers who responded to a call Saturday afternoon after the number of Pacquiao fans that had gathered just outside the Wild Card Gym began to swell.
The police officers arrived in three mobile units at around 4 p.m. and were surprised by the size of the crowd, each one of them hoping to get close to Pacquiao, who was holed out inside one of the commercial establishments.
“Who’s this guy again?” one of the officers asked a colleague. He just sounded clueless on Pacquiao’s popularity and the type of reception the reigning pound-for-pound champion generates wherever he goes, whatever he does.
Pacquiao fans waiting outside the gym as he trains is already a common sight in this side of Hollywood. But on Saturday they got a little too big for comfort that someone had to call the LAPD for crowd management.
“It was the first time we took this call so we had to step in,” said the LAPD officer who said he was Filipino, in fact carrying the nametag Delos Reyes.
Gently, the police officers had to push the crowd out of the parking lot, and into the sidewalks, and they had to clear the way for Pacquiao and his entourage, which left in a couple of black SUVs, to leave the area.
Pacquiao fans were told to stay beyond the yellow police line until the boxer left for the nearby Nike store where he was to do some promotional exercise. Word had it that he was to meet NBA star and fellow Nike endorser Kobe Bryant in the building.
Just outside the Nike property, situated along Vine St. and near the corner of the famous Sunset and Hollywood boulevards is a billboard showing the image of the Filipino icon, and right beside it the one with the NBA superstar’s.
The STAR asked the same officer if their presence would now be a common sight whenever Pacquiao trains at the gym.
“We don’t know yet. We just got a call this time,” he said.
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