On September 2, 40 minutes before Target Field opened its gates for a Minnesota Twins game against a division rival, the Detroit Tigers, a man opened fire nine blocks away in downtown Minneapolis, resulting in three deaths and six injuries, including law enforcement officers.
“The number of emergency vehicles going by the stadium, headed that direction, was frightening. It was a nonstop cascade of sirens,” said Jeff Beahen, director of security for the Twins.
Beahen, who served in law enforcement for 39 years in Minnesota, is familiar with quick decision-making. Although the security of the baseball stadium itself was not threatened, the proximity of the shooting and the emergency response could have compromised safety and travel logistics for thousands of visitors and employees on their way to the ballpark.
Beahen had 40 minutes to decide whether the game should go on. Within a few minutes, he used a platform called Envoy to notify employees about the shooting, and 25 minutes later, he sent out a second notice that the situation was stable. Alerting employees in the building and those on the way helped Beahen make sure that risks were averted while an emergency meeting convened with the security team. The game was played. (The Twins lost in extra innings.)
Visitor management
The cloud-based workplace management platform Envoy was created in 2013 by an engineer, Larry Gadea. The Twins implemented the platform in 2019 for delivery and visitor management, then adopted its emergency response system in 2025. The Twins were part of the beta version of the new platform called Envoy Response, which officially launched in August.
Response uses on-premise data to track the safety of employees in large-scale buildings, such as stadiums, data centers, and office buildings. More than 16,000 high-compliance workplaces around the world use Envoy, including 92 of the Fortune 500 companies, according to a spokesperson at the San Francisco-based company. Envoy assesses multiple kinds of threats or events, including shootings, chemical spills, or protests in the vicinity of a workplace.
Target Field can host more than 40,000 people at maximum capacity, according to Beahen, and can accommodate well beyond 100,000 visitors over a weekend. Major League Baseball teams are required to get certified under the Department of Homeland Security’s SAFETY Act, Beahen says, which includes showing their stadiums have established practices covering life safety and evacuation protocols. When Beahen joined the Twins, his primary role was to get the certification. The Twins were the 12th MLB team to achieve this certification, in 2023.
Rapid emergency response
On the day of the shooting, Beahen used Envoy to notify roughly 500 employees of the threat, and added some 78 people to the system who may have been in and around the stadium, such as coaching staff and scouts. It took him roughly 2 minutes to put together the message.
“When I think about the way the security industry has evolved, a lot of it has been on the basis of facility-level decisions,” said Bridget Scott Akinc, vice president of strategy at Envoy. Instead of relying solely on physical security measures, like card readers and cameras, the platform detects employees on-site through their connection to the network.
Before implementing the platform, the Twins used an emergency notification platform that lacked directory integration. This meant contact lists were inaccurate, and notifications were sent to former employees. While not every incident is an emergency, the cohesive system made messaging more reliable and organized.
Beahen notes the surge in emergency situations related to political and social unrest in Minneapolis. From the George Floyd murder in 2020 and the protests that followed, to the fatal shootings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti by ICE enforcement officers earlier this year, threat intelligence remains a crucial part of keeping Minneapolis citizens safe, including at venues where thousands of people come together.
Expanding internationally
Several sports arenas across the country have adopted Envoy in their emergency response process, including those of the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles and NBA’s Miami Heat. Several universities, media companies, and data centers have implemented its visitor management and security features, as has the computer chip company Nvidia.
Envoy Response has been adopted by nine organizations since its August launch, some of which have international office locations, like the online forum Reddit and the equity management platform Carta.
The company is looking toward other international partnerships for Response, particularly in Britain. After the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017, when 22 people were killed and more than 1,000 injured, the U.K. brought in “Martyn’s Law,” so known from the name of one of those killed. It requires certain public venues to implement security measures and staff training to protect from terrorist attacks. The legislation passed in 2025, and takes full effect in 2027. Ahead of that, U.K. venues are moving toward more documented risk assessments. Envoy published a guide to the law in June, positioning itself as a solution to these requirements.
The unique challenges of arenas
The platform accommodates different physical spaces, from offices in tall buildings to stadiums outside of cities. But arenas face particular challenges, with the movement of thousands of attendees and employees. While the platform is not a standalone solution for emergencies, it has made the logistics of dealing with nearby emergencies easier to track for the Twins, helping Beahen, the security director, make faster decisions.
Stadiums, Beahen says, are soft targets. “We don’t have walls that protect us, we have open gates . . . and we have to have preparedness and tools and strategies to mitigate that, knowing that someone may take advantage.”
For Beahen, the shooting near Target Field illustrates a broader reality of stadium security: Preparedness is no longer limited to protecting the physical perimeter. When threats can emerge suddenly and outside a venue’s walls, security teams need timely information, accurate personnel data, and a way to communicate with people before, during, and after an incident.
