Advice to Security Officers: No Help on the Way

I was on a routine foot patrol of the factory buildings and grounds. I went to the furthest area of interest. The gates of the storage yard were a problem point in the two officer night security duty. The employees would forget about locking the gates at the end of the shift. During the summer, employees bypassed security altogether by using this weak point to convince an ice cream vendor to enter the furthest end near the shop buildings where they took unauthorized breaks to purchase treats. One security officer watched the main employee entrance, monitored the radio base station and handled some phone calls while the other officer patrolled. Tonight was no different. I cast a cautious eye towards the long dirt road to the first gate nearest the out buildings. They were open again. I noticed that the employees had disengaged the pole lamp power and no lights were on in the the area that I would have to go. My eyes followed to the last set of gates that lead to a neighborhood street. Someone was down there at the roadside! A pickup sat with its lights aimed at the double gate. I decided on getting support. I pressed the radio button and spoke, "Base I have a problem at the south gates." I waited for a reply. Nothing. I checked the volume. I tested it by pressing a button to cause static noise. It was fine. "Base, we have someone trying to enter the plant from the south gates." No reply. I thought to myself, "what the hell?" "Base we should call the cops..." Nothing.

No weapon other than a steel flashlight. No backup. No one on the other end of the radio. I decide to "John Wayne" it. "Cowboy up", was what they called it. Bad idea. I approached staying out of site and wandering through the maze of aircraft skins, cast dyes, shipping boxes and wood. I watched the drunk shaking the chain and padlock. I made contact. "What are you doing?" I put the light beam in the drunk's eyes holding the lamp out away from myself and with the shaft exposed just in case. The sluggish drunk sprang to life as well as someone from the truck. It was a good idea to hold the lamp away from myself. They aimed the empty beer bottles at it. I crouched as I let the lamp go dead and stepped left, foot over foot. A bottle had come close enough to sing to my right eye as it passed by at rocket speed. I entered an aircraft hull as the truck peeled out swirling dirt powder every which way. It was a close call. I tried the radio again, "base, I've had a bad problem...base!" No answer. I made the way back to the main entrance and walked past the security officer making my way to the radio base station. The volume was on zero. I looked at him. He had walked the patrol before my own, yet his shoes and socks were clean. "Why was this off?" He replied, "It was off?"

Caution is important.

If you need to sneak about, don't hold a flashlight on yourself. When you go through unlit space, use pulse flashes to avoid being sighted upon. Walk in the dark gaps that the street lamps don't reach for the same reason. I used a micro-light with a pressure activated switch instead of an on/off switch. It appears more like a firefly in the dark. Try not to shine the flashlight while holding it in front of your head. Inbound projectiles may be aimed at the seen brightness. Don't get back lit. Lit windows, vending machines and such can make you visible. A well constructed flashlight can make a fair club. Life comes at you fast and often it's about what you have available to defend yourself with. You have to remember your list of acceptable defence options, but I'd rather be a winner rather than be dead. A person that is not known to be friendly can be denied vision by using the beam of light. In crossing ground, the art of tip toeing is to drop your toes to the earth lightly, bringing the heel down quietly- especially in crossing water. The smaller noise is to reverse the action to avoid a sucking or splashing noise. Shoe choice should be considered earlier.

Try to leave yourself a way to back out of a situation. You approaching a vehicle is tricky at best. A vehicle is a defendable obstacle for someone to stage combat from. A trunk lid may spring up. A door may fly open. Weapons can be used from the windows. Occupants can lower themselves. The vehicle itself is a weapon if used wrongly. A vehicle may be altered in some way that gives the occupant an advantage. One has to be able to see what is going on or able to control the occupants in some manner. If they can see you, but you can't see them it's not good. You should get help. Often the approacher will preplan to leave evidence of contact on a vehicle that they approach for good reason. A few finger prints will develop a relationship between the approacher and the vehicle.

Avoid "John Wayne" tactics. It is ok to get help. If you can't get help, get information and withdraw to a safe position. Then you can call for help. Only a few situations would ever cause you to go over the top. Guard work is greatly mere reporting. Many companies don't want more than a report due to the potential of legal woes. I was told at one place that I worked that the company retired its guard dog force because humans were cheaper. A security guard works within perimeters of duty. Know what your duties are. A body guard is a body guard, a security guard is a security guard and a police officer is a police officer.

I want to make some observations about security work:

*The worst screw overs will come from within your own trusted circle. You can't count on help. Think about my opening story. Sometimes people will also exploit developed friendships.

*Other guards can become criminals. They have control of the facilities. Keys to almost everything. It's tempting to take advantage of a facility's trust. In some cases you will not be rewarded for good security work partially because of the complex crime systems that can develop in large companies where management, security and maintenance employees could join forces to commit theft.

*Forgeries of security documents happen. I've seen this a few times. Security documents are legal documents, but to the dishonest they can be a way of not doing required activities. The documents can be used to cover unauthorized activities. One way is to get access to old documents that can be re-dated. Documents must be locked away from lower ranking officers. It sounds overly simple, but I've seen the documents left in an unlocked file and inside of the guard house of some posts that I've worked at. Another way of lying to the supervision is when Detex clock keys are removed from their locations and used to trick security managers into thinking patrols were done when no such thing happened. There are tail tell signs of tampering with Detex clock reporting disks. Detex key chain mounts should be checked regularly by a supervisor of security. The Detex paper disk should be locked away from lower ranking security employees. Any check point system used to record a patrol route of a security employee can be tampered with. I've even seen forgery attempted with video recordings of routes.

*Your post may be understaffed. A large facility covered by one or two security guards is not unknown.

*You will not be paid enough to loose your life or endure agonizing injury. Minimum wage and no benefits? What; are you kidding!

*A security force will try to divide itself based on many things like race, social opinion, politics etc. This can lead to a failure in cooperation between guards.

*Your age will be judged before your rank and job performance. I had a "post inspector" walk past me as I stood in my guard house wearing my rank insignia and outstretching my hand. The "post inspector" went to the older man who was in partial uniform, still in training and started pumping the older person's hand.

*When you back a buddy up, cover yourself. Sometimes people lie about the circumstances of an incident.

*Strange combinations happen. One of the things that occurred in the above story is that as I denied vision to the subject a city lamp located just behind the truck began to flicker to life. If that light had come on strongly the bottles may have found their mark. Sometimes you just get an unfortunate series of events.

*When you see one, expect two. When you see two, expect three. Expect the worst and be relieved when it's not so. In the above story, I did not see the second person until it was too late.

*People will steal in front of you.

*Police men either are supportive of security officers or are annoyed by them. Many officers start their careers in security, but many others never have and may feel that they don't have commonality. There is a difference. The police are required by law to act against unlawful acts, while the security officer may assume the authority to act on offenses via civilian arrest. The security guard is a civilian. The security guard is not required to do something about unlawfulness. He can call the cops. Eventually, the security employee has to call the cops anyway. The security officer generally just enforces the policies of a client and has an awareness of what actions are unlawful.

*Some women have fantasies. The badge may get you a woman but you may not stay employed long. You open yourself up for problems when you take advantage of this kind of opportunity.

*People think they don't want security until they have a dilemma. One of my worst detractors had an affair at work to go bad. She piped down when she realized that she needed a guard to walk her out to her vehicle for safety concerns.

*Lit areas do not guarantee low crime. People are jaded. Lighting does help identify criminal acts that would not be seen otherwise. That's the true value of lighting.

*Disgruntled security employees will sabotage. Like everyone else they either want to get ahead or they get fed up with their jobs. They either try to make the other employee look like an ass or just need to take a little time off.

*Sometimes you will be investigated. Being investigated may be good. Maybe they want to know if they can trust you. Nothing wrong with a promotion. Then again, are you flying straight? Guards can get arrested. Be in the right.

*Many times a pilfering guard is given the option to resign rather than be fired or have a complaint filed against them. Problem employees can show up at another locality for a different service.

*You may have to go an extra distance to put down a bad guard. I had one to keep charming the boss so well that it took an entire year to snare him with his own arrogance. The more rope you give them, the longer the drop at the end. Sometimes if you back down a little, a bad guard hangs their-own-self.

*The quiet ones can put you at most risk. I worked with a pleasantly efficient, quiet guy for a month or two until he murdered his wife.

*Guards can be irrational. Once I had trouble getting a guard to notify the police of a weapons discharge aimed at the general area of the security shack because he was afraid to wake the police up so late at night. Now, if you think that every night shift cop goes home and gets paid to sleep....oh, you get the picture.

*Drunks can be either peaceful, fun, a pain or just plain crazy! I watched a driver go into a drainage ditch. He kept driving although the truck had long met with an obstacle. It was as good as the fourth of July explosions overhead. Sparks ripped from the concrete and shot over the street above and still he drove forward. Tires long eroded. Going nowhere and yet obviously feeling a sense of accomplishment.

The attraction to doing security work is to be in on the small number of weird things that do happen, but don't be like me in the opening story. Get information when you can't get help and fall back to a position from which you can safely report from.