Avoiding liability for mass casualty incidents

[Condo Guard]

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-...717-story.html

The SAFETY Act lets corporations avoid lawsuits after a terrorist attack provided that they can show they had adequate security in place. The take away for security companies is that if you do event security or protect any other facilities that may be targets, the extra time and effort to get a SAFETY Act certification would be worth it. Reading the between the lines, it sounds like the security company doesn't have a lot to worry about it, but MGM does, hence the preemptive suing to dismiss potential litigants in the case.

[psycosteve]

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-...717-story.html

The SAFETY Act lets corporations avoid lawsuits after a terrorist attack provided that they can show they had adequate security in place. The take away for security companies is that if you do event security or protect any other facilities that may be targets, the extra time and effort to get a SAFETY Act certification would be worth it. Reading the between the lines, it sounds like the security company doesn't have a lot to worry about it, but MGM does, hence the preemptive suing to dismiss potential litigants in the case.

This brings up an interesting question to the members here? What would have been adequate security for this event? Hotel security was focused on hotel security and the event security was focused on the event. An attack from the hotel was something they believe was either not possible or unbelievably unlikely to ever happen. Believe it or not but Las Vegas has quite a bit of 2A tourism with full auto rental available at most of the ranges and the Front Sight training center about an hout away a bunch of firearms in cases would not have turned many heads up to this point. It is not uncommon with people who invested in the Front Site memberships to go train for a week then spend a week on the strip afterwards. Looking from a far distance on the outside of this I do not see what could have been done to prevent this shooting from happening. The Hotel security was focused around the casino and the event security was focused around the event. This was not a presidential appearance but a concert. Counter snipers and a full secret service detail would have been the only way this could have been prevented.


All MGM is doing is stalling until the emotions start to die down and are trying to keep this from becoming a jury trial.

[Squid]

I'm not blaming MGM for what happened prior. I'm sure 100s if not 1000s of guys very similar to ALLEGED shooter check into MGM and similar hotels with similar amounts of guns, and I'm serious. I know perfectly semi-normal guys in construction and they'll go on hunting/camping trips and they will PACK maybe dozen guns.

On the other hand I'm pretty sure Hotel Management has perfect right to enter any room after a couple knocks, as well as 86 anyone for just about any reason on their sole say so (and you can sue for unused billings).

On another hand, even if ALLEGED shooter not a part of any Protected Class (except maybe "elderly") hotels live in fear of unlawfully refusing someone their right to "public accommodations".

If someone wants hotels to be liable for sneaky surprise mass shooters, they first need to roll back Civil Rights.

[Condo Guard]

We don't need to "roll back" civil rights. Security and other staff at busy venues need to be trained in better situational awareness. This case is hard to "Monday morning quarterback" because a lot of details will never be released (for good reasons, obviously.) But let's take the room service cart with the camera on it - how long was it there? Did the cart get picked up the same time every day (in which case he could remove the camera and put it back on the next cart)?

A guy like this, staying under the radar, picking a soft target, etc. is almost impossible to stop before the incident. But others are not going to be so organized, methodical and "normal" acting. They might be stopped with better trained and more aware security. (And I'm not blaming MGM's staff - I'm thinking more of the guards with their hat on backwards, staring at their iphone with their shirt untucked that I see walking around my city... )