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Police duties fast becoming part of private security www.privateofficer.com
Three months after 9/11, the New York Times ran a quiet story that highlighted a developing trend concerning a sudden increase in the number of police officers retiring from their jobs for careers with private security companies. “The heightened hunger for private protection in the aftermath of history’s worst terrorist attacks is fueling the potentially destabilizing exodus,” the story claimed.
The daily suspected that police officers were being lured by the lucrative salaries and benefits offered by the private sector, finding that within the New York Police Department, a “supervisor who plays matchmaker between retired officers and security firms was asked to provide hundreds of names to industry executives.”
Indeed, the article identified what at the time was thought of as a marginal development, but is now almost commonplace:
“In the Sept. 11 disaster that never seems to stop exacting its toll, one of the subtler but more serious losses is a consequence of the booming private security industry, which is draining the NYPD of some of its most desirable workers: the serious, smart and experienced senior officers the city needs most in a crisis.”
Fast forward nine years later and one finds a young industry built almost entirely on the backs of former military and police personnel who have provided everything from diplomatic, convoy, embassy, weapon storage and energy infrastructural security to gathering intelligence, conducting interrogations, patrolling borders on land, fighting pirates on sea and transporting goods and personnel by air. It would seem there is nothing these forces cannot do.
On private patrol
Policing some of the most dangerous US cities has quickly become the newest line of business for many of these companies which have already replaced police officers in cities from Portland to Baltimore.
The phenomenon runs deeper than the normal shopping center or bank security guard. While in many cases private security personnel act more as city cleanup, organization or local ambassadors, some cities are pushing for armed private security personnel to patrol the streets, perform arrests and transport civilians. This is somewhat of a cause for concern, especially because of the more controversial issues surrounding the role of private military and security companies abroad in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.
Cities are turning to the private sector for a variety of reasons. Some local and state governments are under pressure from budget deficits and are often convinced that privatized industries are more cost-effective than state agencies and bureaucracies. Other cities have an already overstretched force that cannot respond to increases in crime, so private contractors are seen as a quick fix and an easy force multiplier.
From Oakland to New Orleans
Oakland, California is the latest city looking to hire private companies to patrol some of its rougher neighborhoods in the wake of record municipal budget deficits. Last April, according to the Wall Street Journal, the city successfully voted to outsource part of its police patrol to International Services Inc, but later retracted after “two of its vice presidents were accused by the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office of defrauding the state of California out of more than $9 million in workers compensation.”
According to the daily Portland Mercury newspaper, Portland, Oregon’s downtown area is patrolled by armed personnel with arrest powers that are supplied by Portland Patrol, Inc, a company which, according to local media, has repeatedly evaded requests to appear before the city’s oversight committee.
Over 2,000 miles away, Chicago has turned to a company that currently operates in police-like automobiles marked “special patrol,” according to CBS News, and are expected to have their powers expanded as the city combats increased crime rates with an overstretched police force.
Down south in New Orleans, Louisiana, armed private guards patrol wealthy neighborhoods and private schools. According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, “Some areas of New Orleans have used armed private patrols since 1997, when residents in an east New Orleans community petitioned Louisiana’s legislature to create a tax on property owners to pay for a private force. About 20 residential tax districts have been established, employing an estimated 100 private guards. This month, seven more neighborhoods voted to create such districts.”
During the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, New Orleans was patrolled by approximately 150 heavily armed Blackwater personnel alongside several other big contractor companies like Dyncorp, Wackenhut and most interestingly, ISI, an Israeli company that flew in former Israeli Special Forces commandos.
Most notably of all of these companies is Capital Special Police, which not only supplies guards and corporate escorts, but offers “real police officers that arrest for felonies and misdemeanors; issue citations for infractions; and enforce local ordinances.”
In January 2007, the Washington Post reported that the company was “one of dozens of private security companies given police powers by the state of North Carolina.
“The more than 1 million contract security officers, and an equal number of guards estimated to work directly for U.S. corporations, dwarf the nearly 700,000 sworn law enforcement officers in the United States,” the daily wrote.
A 2000 report from American University in Washington, DC concluded that “The great contemporary challenge confronting public safety in the United States is not primarily about whether privatization and civilianization are good things. It is about how best to serve the public’s need for protection against crime generally and, in particular, how to shape and coordinate our resources and energies to secure the safety of those quarters of society that are least able to afford effective security, public or private.”
Beginning of the boom
To this end, American cities might soon find a large surplus of job-seeking private security personnel when and if President Barack Obama pulls troops and contractors out of Iraq. Indeed, several US cities have already created public-private police associations in an attempt to bridge cooperation between the two forces. Suffice to say, the private policing boom is only just beginning.
The phenomenon transcends the public-private goods debate and indicates a new shift in how security is allocated by the state. Where the monopoly of force once consisted of exclusively state-owned functions, these have now been outsourced, in part or whole, to private entities.
In a post-Cold War age that heralds neoliberalism as a part of an “End of History,” privatization of police and military force should not come as a terribly big surprise. On the other hand, the transfer of security to private power (or the penetration of private power into a state’s monopoly of force) should hold serious implications over how the provision of security is conceptualized, as well as for the forces that create state power.
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Burglary suspect attacks security with knife www.privateofficer.com
Seattle police are looking for a man who was involved in an assault and break-in Friday afternoon. Just before 6 p.m., police received a report of a security guard fighting with a knife-wielding man at a store in the 5200 block of 40th Avenue North.
As police were on their way, the man fled the store and forced his way into a nearby animal hospital that was closed but still had employees inside, police said. The man fled from the hospital and dropped the knife outside.
He then fled through several backyards and attempted to get inside several homes in the 4000 block of Northeast 56th Street, police said.
Police responded and recovered items believed to have been stolen.
Detectives know the identity of the 28-year-old suspect and are trying to track him down.
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Police K-9 dies in patrol car www.privateofficer.com
Vysta was in the vehicle alone for 40 minutes earlier this week, Hunter said.
Hunter said it’s a car designed specifically for police K-9 units.
“The bond between officers is strong, but in my experience the bond of officers and their K-9 partners can be even stronger and deeper,” said Florence Police Chief Bob Ingulli. “All of us in the department are in deep grief.
Investigators haven’t said if something in the car might have malfunctioned.
Ingulli requested of the Arizona Department of Public Safety to conduct an investigation into the cause of death.
“When we lose one of our own we grieve, we want to know what caused this terrible tragedy,” Ingulli said.
Vysta was a 3½-year-old Czech shepherd.
“To us she was an officer, so we are doing exactly what we would do for any other officer who died on duty,” the chief said.
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Florida woman charged in shoe attack on security www.privateofficer.com
The guard then used pepper spray on Karen Cruz, 23, an arrest report said.
Cruz and a group of friends got into an argument with another group of people about 1:05 a.m. today at the El Rodeo Tejano, 8222 U.S. N. 301, the report said.
After the club security broke up the disagreement, Cruz grabbed a shoe and hit a security guard in the face, opening a 1-inch cut, the report said.
Cruz was charged with aggravated battery with great bodily harm, a felony, and was released this afternoon from the Orient Road Jail after posting bail of $7,500.
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Tucson teacher arrested for sexual misconduct www.privateofficer.com
Tucson Police arrested an Utterback Middle School teacher on Friday. Police say 36-year-old Joseph O. Massey was booked into the Pima County Jail on two counts of Sexual Conduct with a Minor.
Authorities say he is being investigated for having an inappropriate relationship with a female student.
Police say a family member discovered suspicious chat messages on the 15-year-old victim’s Facebook account and alerted authorities.
Police say officers contacted Mr. Massey and after interviewing him they determined they had enough probable cause to arrest him.
The Tucson Unified School District says Massey is on paid leave while the investigation continues.
A spokesperson says he has been at Utterback since October.
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Three charged in melee, stabbing security officer www.privateofficer.com
Three Reno men were arrested this morning after they refused to leave a bar and one of them allegedly stabbed a security guard.
Several men were asked to leave El Cortez Lounge, 235 W. 2nd St., about 7:10 a.m. Police say they refused to leave and got into a physical altercation with security. One of the suspects allegedly stabbed one of the bouncers in the abdomen with a knife.
The suspects were arrested after fleeing the area. The victim was treated for minor injuries and released from the hospital.
Dontay Servier, 19 of Reno, was arrested on suspicion of battery with a deadly weapon and simple battery.
Jarvis Washington, 24 of Reno, was arrested on suspicion of battery, trespass and a warrant.
The third suspect, who refused all information, was arrested on suspicion of obstructing and resisting.
Detectives can be reached at 334-2115 or Secret Witness at 322-4900
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