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PRESS RELEASE-PRIVATE OFFICER MEMORIAL WEEK
Year after year, private security officers employed worldwide are killed while protecting life and property and in most cases receive little or no recognition, honors or respect.
This situation occurs because there has not been any centralized organization to step forward to thank these fallen heros and to be there as a support for the family that they have left behind.
But in the past several years all of that has changed with the inception of the Memorial Aid Fund sponsored and administered by
PRIVATE OFFICER INTERNATIONAL.
We also realized that there has never been any official week or dedicated time period to remember these men and woman who bravely, valiantly and willingly sacrificed their life to fulfill their duties to their client, their employer and to the public safety of the area that they were responsible for.
Therefore, a committee was formed to aid in the research and designation of a specific date in time when we as professionals in our field along with the rest of the law enforcement and security community,families, friends and the general public could pay homage and respect and gratitude to more than 300 Private Officers who have been killed in the past four years and the many others who died before that in service to those that they were hired to protect, serve, and guard against all criminal activity or other harm that would otherwise come against their
employer’s property, employees, visitors and the general public.
PRIVATEOFFICER INTERNATIONAL has worked diligently for almost a year to seek input from security agencies and organizations and professional associations to select a week each year when we could memorialize our fallen colleagues and we are extremely pleased to announce that we have determined a special time for us to do this each year beginning with 2009.
Each year, the third week in the month of September shall be recognized as the “Official”
“Private Officer Memorial Week”.
During this week each year, there will be many planned activities and they will be announced in advance of
the memorial week each year.
INTERNATIONAL PRIVATE OFFICER
MEMORIAL WEEK
SEPTEMBER 20-26 2009
PRESS RELEASE
Immediate Release
Atlanta Ga. September 22 2009
The INTERNATIONAL PRIVATE OFFICER MEMORIAL WEEK has been scheduled for SEPTEMBER 20-26 2009.
This week has been designated for security officers along with law enforcement and others in the security community, families, friends and the
general public to pay their respects and gratitude to more than 300 Private Security Officers who have been killed in the past four years and the
many others who died before that in service to those that they were hired to protect, serve, and guard, preventing harm that would otherwise
come against their employer’s property, employees, visitors and the general public.
This year’s Memorial Week will include numerous events scheduled in Atlanta Georgia and in Charlotte North Carolina.
On September 20th the event will begin by reading the names of all security personnel
killed in the past five years.
In addition to this, a special remarks wall on the Private Officer website will be available for family members, friends and other visitors to leave
notes, poems, songs, pictures and other mementos for these fallen hero’s.
A candlelight vigil and prayer by the association Chaplain will also take place on
Wednesday evening in downtown Atlanta.
Other events are also planned in numerous states and in the U.K., Brazil, Canada, and Australia.
Each year, more than eighty security officers are killed in the U.S. while in the performance of their duties. Internationally, more than one thousand
security officers are killed yearly.
About Private Officer International: This international association was started in 2004 by Rick McCann, CEO/Founder, as a training and networking resource for private security officers and has grown to include members in six countries.
Membership is open to all security officers, loss prevention agents, campus and school officers, law enforcement, vendors of the security industry and the general public who support the association’s goals and purpose.
Website: http://www.privateofficer.com
Contact Info: Kyle T. Greene
Email:kyletgreene@privateofficer.com
704.559.4151
Man pleads guilty to 1998 murder of security officer
Madison County Circuit Judge William Chapman sentenced Marcus Reed to 20 years with 10 to serve and 10 suspended.
Canton Police Department reopened the cold case last year. Reed, who was 18 at the time of the shooting, had confessed to someone other than the police but the information did not get to authorities then.
Reid was a security guard at Canton Gardens Apartments when, in response to a disturbance, he sprayed Reed with mace. Reed then came back and shot the guard three times with a 9-millimeter gun.
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Hospital guard arrested for child porn www.privateofficer.com
Charles James Brown, 61, was charged with five counts of sexual performance by a child, the sheriff’s office said.
Investigators said they have been investigating the downloading and distribution of child pornography on the internet. Through the investigation, the sheriff’s office learned last month that Brown had child pornography material, the sheriff’s office reported.
Brown was arrested at his Clearwater home without incident.
There is no evidence that Brown conducted himself inappropriately at the hospital, the sheriff’s office said.
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Small plane crash in Florida kills 4 www.privateofficer.com
Four people aboard a small plane returning from University of Florida football game over the weekend were presumed dead on Sunday night night when the aircraft experienced engine trouble and crashed into swampland in West Broward, authorities said.
The single-engine plane went down west of U.S. 27 just south of the Broward-Palm Beach County line, according to the Broward Sheriff’s Office, which sent search teams of firefighters and paramedics into the marsh Sunday. The cause of crash is unknown.
Moments before the crash, the pilot contacted operators at MIA’s control tower, reported engine trouble and declared mayday before the transmission cut off, according to Jim Peters, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.
National Transportation Safety Board investigators were at the crash scene, but it may take months to determine why the plane went down only a few miles from its Fort Lauderdale destination.
“It’s a long, thorough process,” said NTSB spokesman Keith Holloway.
Authorities presume the pilot and three passengers are dead because of the severity of the crash, said BSO spokeswoman Keyla Concepcion.
The plane’s pilot was Fort Lauderdale investment advisor Bruce Barber, a longtime aviator who owns and operates Bull Gator Air, according to friends.
Barber named his company after the UF team and would often take his plane — painted white with blue and orange stripes — north for weekend Gator games. He was an honored Bull Gator, part of the elite group of fans who donate thousands of dollars to the team.
Barber’s friend and former business partner, Eric Elliott, said the pilot and his family were returning from a weekend in Gainesville.
Elliott said those onboard included Barber’s wife Karen, 14-year-old son Payton and friend Phil Marsh. Not aboard the aircraft was their 9-year-old daughter Chloe, who they left at a friend’s home for the weekend.
Neither federal nor local investigators have provided a list of those who flew in Barber’s fixed-wing Piper PA-32R, but BSO deputies reported four people had boarded the plane in Gainesville.
BSO stated only one person’s body has been discovered in the marsh. The others are presumed dead.
Friends say the four flew north to attend a Friday fundraiser for Gov. Charlie Crist held at the home of Barber’s close friend, Miami attorney Danny Ponce.
The next day, they sat in Barber’s special box at the 50-yard line and enjoyed UF’s 23-13 win over the Tennessee Volunteers.
According to FlightAware.com, which tracks flights nationwide, Barber left Gainesville at 4:13 p.m. and was scheduled to arrive at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport less than two hours later.
But just before 6 p.m., as it approached the airport from the northwest, the plane fell into the marsh west of U.S. 27.
BSO launched airboats to search for the downed plane and found the burning wreckage just south of the Broward-Palm Beach County line.
Local and federal agencies are coordinating to recover the remains of passengers and missing pieces of the plane.
News of the crash stunned Barber’s friend Elliott, who described him as a safe and “brilliant pilot.” Elliott himself took up flying after Barber convinced him to buy a plane together.
Elliott said the downed plane was equipped with three top-notch GPS navigation devices and a special storm-tracking radar system.
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Honest people return $10,000 found in bag www.privateofficer.com
That was the case Wednesday when Kim Smith, 46, of Kearney, Neb., and her son Logan Potter, 18, found $9,620 in $20 bills lying on the street in north Kearney.
At first, Smith didn’t know exactly what it was the two drove on 48th Street in between Kmart and Target.
“It looked like a notebook like the kids carry in school,” said Smith who works at Kearney’s Red Lobster. “I’m famous for picking up stuff.”
So Smith turned around, and Potter picked up the dark-colored bag lying along the curb near Kmart’s north entrance. The bag was locked and had numbers and letters on it.
Smith, a self-described scavenger, and Potter took the bag home and tried to unlock it.
“I’m all the time seeing something in the road, and I’ll say, ‘Hey, what is that?’” Smith said with a chuckle.
After several attempts to unlock the bag, Smith cut it open and found the single 4-inch thick stack of bills wrapped in rubber bands. A tag inside the bag said the bag belonged to Rochester Armored Car service.
I just thought, ‘Holy cow. We just found a bag full of money,’” Smith exclaimed. “And I thought, ‘Oh, my God, there has to be $5,000 or $10,000 in here.’”
Smith and Potter started counting the money, but got too nervous about the quantity they were dealing with and called the Kearney Police Department.
“This is like the find of the century, but we’ve got to give it back,” Smith remembered thinking. “It was scary and an exciting heartbreak all in one hour.”
It isn’t known how the bag ended up on the street, and a spokesperson with Rochester Armored Car of Grand Island declined to comment. But Kearney Police Chief Dan Lynch said “good Samaritan” wasn’t a strong enough description for Smith and Potter.
“That’s a stroke of honesty that you may not find in every instance,” he said. “I think they did the right thing the right way.”
Wednesday isn’t the first time Smith has found something lying in the road. She has found wallets – which she’s returned – various tools, a Navy knife, two Game Boys, a sapphire bracelet and cell phones.
“I’ve just found all kinds of stuff,” she said with a laugh. “I’m a scavenger, and it pays off sometimes.”
Smith, who tries to set a good example for her children, never considered keeping the money.
“It was more of a scarier feeling to think about keeping it than it was to give it back,” she said. “It would’ve been nice to have. But that would’ve been too big of a secret.”
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