Never has a professional sports team so perfectly mirrored their host city.
Sporadic acts of violence by Eagles fans against fans of visiting teams, combined with ongoing difficulties relating to public drunkenness, prompted Philadelphia municipal judge Seamus McCaffrey and the Philadelphia Police Department to establish a small, in-stadium courtroom at the Vet in 1997. Additionally, plainclothes officers, dressed in the colors of the visiting team, were dispatched to sit in sections known as being dangerous to opposing fans, most such sections being located in the Vet’s notorious “700 Level” at the top of the stadium. The success of the program was widely noted and has continued to the present day (Lincoln Financial Field includes a built-in prison facility and courtroom for such purposes). Overzealous Eagle fans caught by such sting operations are arrested, charged and taken to the courtroom, where McCaffrey usually sits in judgment. Such efforts have made the inside of the stadium much safer for opposing fans than was previously the case, but the stadium parking lots (and subways to the games) are still notoriously anarchic places. Such behavior aside, the majority of fans are well-behaved, if vocal.