Rentacop tasers man holding baby (a rant)

[EMTGuard]

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3478918

I peeked over in O.com and there was no discussion about this. Interesting since it involved a police officer.
Knowing the media and it's habit of getting simple facts wrong I was not expecting much but was still distressed over the lack of real investivagtive and informational reporting done in the story.
Add to that the continued bluring of the lines between the decription of Security Guard vs police officer. This is a major pet peeve of mine.
Beginning with quotes like

a hospital security guard fired a stun gun

we get the idea that a contract or inhouse security officer fired the taser.
Then, several paragraphs into the story we read-

David Boling, an off-duty Houston police officer working security at the hospital, and another security guard can be seen on the surveillance video arriving at the elevators and trying to talk with Lewis.

So it wasn't an actual security guard/officer. The video of the incident makes this more clear. While the other officer (dark uniform) in the video may indeed be a contract or inhouse security officer/guard, Mr Boling is clearly wearing a Houston Police Department issue uniform and as such is acting with the authority and powers granted to a sworn LEO. Yes, he is there, alongside the secruity staff, providing security to the hospital, but that does not make him a security guard. It makes him a cop, on assignment and paid by the hospital through an agreement with the police department. In other words, a Rentacop.
We have enough problems with the general public misidentifying us. Even people who saw the story on ABC.com made comments such as

security guards are not the brightest people on the job,

. Although the article IDs the cop by name and department the public still walk away with the impression that it was a minimum wage janitor/guard who pulled a taser on a man holding a baby in the hospital.
It's time the press began clearly making the distinction between police officers working extra duty assignments, aka Rentacop details, and actual security officers.

Please, think of the children.

Thanks for reading.
Comments please.

[OccamsRazor]

It's time the press began clearly making the distinction between police officers working extra duty assignments, aka Rentacop details, and actual security officers.

What would be the point of that? We all know the MSM (mainstream media) doesn't make mistakes; just ask them.

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/breaking_news_something_happening

[Lawson]

Comments please.

Security guards are not the brightest people on the job.

[EMTGuard]

Security guards are not the brightest people on the job.

There's one in every crowd.
OK, let me clarify....
Your own comments please, not someone elses comments.



looks at BHRLawson and walks away muttering "something's not right with that boy..."

[UtahProtectionForce]

[QUOTE=EMTGuard;36848]
Comments please.
[QUOTE]

looks at EMTguard and walks away muttering "something's not right with that boy..."

[CAPTAIN KOOLAID]

put downs

I just love how people seen someone in uniform mess up. Right away they say it was some brain dead security guard, not a off duty police officer this is the reason why I don't like police doing our jobs they don't know limits of security regular they over step the bounds of security.

[EMTGuard]

I'll be over here banging my head on the wall.

[Maelstrom]

When an LEO or SO does something right, you may read about it towards the middle of a paper (or hear a passing comment in the electronic media), but if they stuff up (royally) guaranateed it'll be in the first 3 pages & running front of bulletins

I'm not sure that a Taser was the best possible option here considering a child was in the target's arm(s), though not knowing the full facts of the situation it would be hard to comment further

[Chucky]

What would be the point of that? We all know the MSM (mainstream media) doesn't make mistakes; just ask them.

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/breaking_news_something_happening

That site is funny as hell. I loved the monkey stabbing report I never would have guessed the test results would end up that way. Support our monkeys Kevlar for them all.

[flashlightcop509]

OK, Houston PD Officer and Security Officer are on scene and confronting the suspect... Did the HPD Officer kinda give the SO a subtle signal to approach the subject from the blind side?

I haven't clicked on the link to see the purported video, but, ehh...

[LPGuy]

this is the reason why I don't like police doing our jobs they don't know limits of security regular they over step the bounds of security.

Having deciphered this, here's what I gathered:

"I don't like police officers doing security work, because they don't know the limits of regular security and they overstep their bounds."

That doesn't make any sense. The police officer wasn't doing security work. He was doing police work--hence the police uniform, the police badge, and the police authority. And, psst, by the way, it's impossible for an off-duty police officer to "overstep the bounds of security"--they aren't required nor expected to operate within any such "bounds" of a private citizen's authority. They neither need to know or operate within "the limits of regular security," because they aren't regular security. That's why people hire police officers to work off-duty.

[sgtnewby]

Well, the Startribune (Minneapolis news paper) has a picture of one of our officers (HCMC security) carrying in a 12 year old victim of the I-35W bridge collapse into the emergency room from a pick-up truck in the ambulance driveway (a lot of people did not wait for ambulances) and the caption below the picture says, "An unidentified Paramedic carries 12 year old (so and so) into the ER...." Our uniforms look nothing alike. They showed another picture in the same article of another one of our officers wiping the sweat off of his head with a towel and the caption calls him a "first responder". Not one mention of "security". The media never gets it right, it aparently would take too much time to get the facts of a story, so they just don't bother with that anymore...

[Black Caesar]

Security guards are not the brightest people on the job.

hehe I noticed that in the comments section too.


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I wince everytime I see a story like this that has a comments section, because it points to a few of my pet peeves:

#1. The total lack of responsibilty, the urge of our modern society to make excuses for stupid behavior. Very few people want to blame the persons who are actually responsible for the entire incident (those trailer park refugees masquerading as parents). People don't like cops and security, so "lets blame them for doing the job they are paid to do and totally ignore the nimrod who started the problem for no good reason at all"..

#2. That large swaths of our (American) society are painfully ignorant about anything (and everything) that occurs outside their lives and experiances (and everything to do with law, law enforcement and security is outside 99% of the people's experiance, i explain to people sometimes that [i]their is a reason why Criminal justice is a MAJOR in college, if a layman could understand it just by looking at it from the outside, you wouldn't need to go to school for it...).....

((look at the one guy's comment about CPS, so CPS is involved because of a cop Tasering a guy? Yea, ok, sure, that makes total sense....unless you actually have 2 functioning brain cells....))

....both of Which leads to the other (more important) pet peeve of mine......


#3. That the people don't KNOW or UNDERSTAND that they are ignorant on the matter and think it's appropriate to comment on something they really don't know anything about.

That just burns me up, to the point that I now have a rule that I DO NOT talk of law enforcement matters with people outside of the LE community, because I swear, if i have to explain to yet another nimrod CSI fan why it's not realistic to "just shoot em in the leg" or why I'm not going to dust a college common area for finger prints (of which their will be thousands) just because they left their backpack there and it got stolen, I might really just explode.

((the student that wanted me to dust for prints told me that I could send the results to the FBI and hopefully get a match.....yea, I'll do that, i'm sure there not too busy or anything......God help us, these students are supposed to be our future....))

Bottom line, the FATHER left the officers with no good options. ANY force option in that situation could produce the same or worse results, and by forcing that situation, he is the only one at fault in my eyes.

[N. A. Corbier]

I just love how people seen someone in uniform mess up. Right away they say it was some brain dead security guard, not a off duty police officer this is the reason why I don't like police doing our jobs they don't know limits of security regular they over step the bounds of security.

They can't "overstep the bounds of security," because they retain their police powers. When you hire an off-duty police officer, you are hiring the police to provide law enforcement services.

Also, as to the taser against man vs. baby... Depending on the threat to the child, you got either taser or handgun. Kenosha PD had a guy with a knife to a toddler's body, one officer started to deploy his taser, the other officer just shot the suspect in the head.

[Black Caesar]

Mr Boling is clearly wearing a Houston Police Department issue uniform and as such is acting with the authority and powers granted to a sworn LEO.

No, he's not actually. He is wearing his uniform as is his right (because A} he's exempt from the private security act and B} his department allows it), but being off duty, he can only) act as an agent of his contracted employer (the hospital).

**Edit, yea, Im being as clear as mud, but it's hard to explain, an off duty Texas LEO has no extraodianry powers normally and being off duty effects the qualified immunty a LEO normally expects while doing the job, BUT an off duty officer can still make an arrest as a peace officer.

An employer can't hire an off duty LEO and say "arrest that guy if he comes back" or "write that lady a ticket if she parks there" thats REAL Illegal, but an off duty LEO can use his "police Authority" in certain (exigent)circumstances, but under normal circumstances the employer can direct his actions and he (the LEO) has no special powers.. probably still not clear, but thats the best I can do.**

Houston PD dosen't contract LE services or assign off duty details, the officers themselves do that individually (I know of one Harris County Constable who does the contract LE thing, don't know about the others and i don't know anyone with the Harris County Sheriff, but I know HPD doesn't).

You can't RENT LE powers in Texas **EDIT: I should clarify (Im doing this alot lol), private citizens can't, but LE agencies can enter into contracts to provide on duty LEOs to certain institutions and organizations, for instance Dallas Public Schools used to contract with Dallas PD for School Resource officers before DISD changed it's Security Dept. to a Police Dept.**. Every individual officer or off duty job coordinator I know (myself included) has had to explain this to potential employers, because they really just don't get it. What they are paying for is a person who can legally display the word POLICE on their uniform and it's natural deterrant effect, nothing more.

Yes, he is there, alongside the secruity staff, providing security to the hospital, but that does not make him a security guard. It makes him a cop, on assignment and paid by the hospital through an agreement with the police department. In other words, a Rentacop.

Nope, read above. HPD has nothing to do with it other than having a policy, allowed by law, to let HPD officers were HPD uniforms while working off duty. Some PDs require officer wear a "generic patch and badge" that says Police but dosen't not mention their agency name, but these Departments are in the minority (mine used to untl 1991, after that College District Police officers were allowed to wear district uniform is off duty employment).

You notice in the article HPD is not investigating the incident. They wouldn't, because it has nothing to do with them. If the officer was indicted in a crime commited while off duty, then they'd investigate.

But he didn't use force as a peace officer, but as a private citizen in private employ...aka a Security Officer.

Side note: I've had it happen once where a lady complained to my Lt because she said I was rude and unhelpful to her at the grocery store I was working at.
The LT. explained that unless I did something illegal to her, what happened at my extra job was between her, me and the store, which she didn't take too well. (This lady was a nutcase, she complained on me because I wouldn't give her the name of the store manager that she had just argued with, I explained to her that any complaints about store personell shold be directed at the management, not me, and then she takes down my name and complains on me to my real job lol).