Bucks Evaluate Deer District Security After Shootings

The Milwaukee Bucks are reassessing their safety and security protocols for the outdoor Deer District viewing area after a series of shootings last Friday during Game 6 of the NBA Eastern Conference semifinals against the Boston Celtics.

The shootings, which left 21 people injured, prompted the team to cancel its Game 7 watch party in the Deer District. 

"I think a very rational decision was to cancel it and really focus on debriefing what had happened, how do we move forward, what are the real operational decisions to make and safety decisions to make before we open back up a watch party," Milwaukee Bucks president Peter Feigin said Monday, according to the Milwaukee Business Journal.

The Deer District was a prominent feature in the Bucks’ 2021 run to the NBA Championship, hosting up to 65,000 fans in and around the space.

Feigin said the Bucks’ first priority is to create a safe space for employees and fans.

"We created a perimeter. We didn’t have direct issues in the Deer District with our scanned audience, but this is a bigger picture element of we need Milwaukee to be a safe place for families, for tourists, for businesspeople, to continue to grow,” Feigin said. “We’ve got to really work together to figure out the tactics to reverse this trend."

Feigin said that the cancellation of the Game 7 watch part at the Deer District was necessary.  

"I think for us, we have a real responsibility to our workforce,” Feigin said. “We had a real responsibility to make sure everybody understood what happened, how we could possibly avoid it in the future. I don’t think there was time to do that in a two-day period. I think a very rational decision was to cancel it and really focus on debriefing what had happened, how do we move forward, what are the real operational decisions to make and safety decisions to make before we open back up a watch party."