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Wal-Mart seeks police help for holiday security www.privateofficer.com
The Town Board voted last week to allow its officers to patrol Walmart throughout Thanksgiving Day weekend. Not just traffic control in the parking lots – in-store patrols, too.
Wallkill isn’t the only local municipality providing Thanksgiving police coverage for the nation’s largest retailer. Town of Ulster Police Chief Paul Watzka says his department will allow several officers to patrol Walmart on Route 199.
The moves are at the retailer’s request, which also asked state police to provide coverage for its store in the Town of Monroe. State police declined the request.
“For us, it’s a dangerous precedent to set,” said state police spokesman Sgt. Kern Swoboda.
A Wal-Mart Stores Inc. spokesperson would not elaborate on the company’s policy. But the move comes after scrutiny Walmart received last year when a temporary employee was trampled to death at a store on Long Island during Black Friday.
Wallkill’s police department will be an independent contractor for Walmart, according to a tentative contract. The officers would be off-duty and initially paid overtime wages by the town. Walmart would then reimburse the town for all salaries and benefit, and the shifts are voluntary.
The contract also includes language that absolves Walmart of any liability over negligence caused by the police, and vice versa.
That’s a major concern for Wallkill Councilman John King, the only Town Board member to vote against the deal; Councilwoman Nina Neighmond was absent and did not vote.
“I don’t think we should be doing private security service for any business,” King said. “I’m concerned for the safety of our officers and the possible liability.”
King also wonders if the department can spare the manpower. Walmart has requested that 10 Wallkill officers – nearly a third of the department – be available 8 p.m. to midnight on Thanksgiving Day, as well as six officers for all 24 hours of Black Friday, and five officers on both Saturday and Sunday.
Walmart “should have their own security system doing that,” King said.
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NYPD kill security guard during nightclub fracas www.privateofficer.com
They say Kevin White was a security guard at the Norwood Palace Sports Bar in Brooklyn, where patrons were smacking each other with stools. They say he was firing into the bar when plainclothes officers arrived around 3 a.m. Sunday and shot him.
The 43-year-old was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Police say they spotted a 19-year-old man with a gun in the bar’s doorway and shot him, too. He’s hospitalized in stable condition.
Bar DJ Timothy Stokes says the fight was over a spilled drink. He tells the Daily News newspaper he heard police yelling, “Put the gun down.”
Three guns were recovered at the scene.
No one answered the phone at the bar Sunday afternoon.
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