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Without being too specific, I patrol a "mixed-income" neighborhood. You can imagine the type of calls I have to respond to - narcotics activity, fight disturbances, noise complaints, QA, etc). It's a fairly stressful and exhausting sometimes, but I love it.
On a recent night, around 0000 hours, I observed two police patrol vehicles parked on the street of this neighborhood. My duties include documenting all police responses to the property, so I stood on the street waiting for the police officers to return from their call.
As I'm waiting, a BAM (black adult male) storms up to me and angrily asks me why I'm writing down his license plate. He's referring to the luxury SUV that I happen to be standing next to. I did have have my notepad open and was writing in it, but I certainly was not writing down his plate and told him this. He demanded that I prove it by showing him my notepad, which I did to pacify him (it didn't contain any sensitive information). He then demanded to know why the police were present in the area, to which I replied that I did not know. He then stormed off ORDERING me to not write down his plate, and mumbling about the police hassling him and how we're all stereotyping. I then observed him waiting outside one of the housing units with a friend.
20 minutes later, the police officers are finally done with their call (unrelated to this jerk) and exit a residence and start walking back to their vehicles. They're intercepted by this guy who angrily demands their names, badge numbers, etc etc (backstory: When the officers first arrived on scene for this other call, they observed a very expensive vehicle parked in the middle of the projects at midnight, with people running upto the car and money being exchanged. As any good officer would, he questioned the driver briefly). The officers give him their information and resume walking back to their cars (the jerk is still yelling about profiling and what not) when they spot me.
PD (yelling loud enough for the jerk to hear): Hey security officer! You're the security officer for here, right? You have authority and jurisdiction over this property, right?
Me: Yeah.
PD: Well you got a suspicious male loitering over there on your property! You should check him out! We'd be glad to assist if he needs to be trespassed!
Me: Sounds good.
So myself, backed by two burly police officers now approach the man.
PD (to the suspect): Hey, this security officer wants to talk to you.
So I proceed to question the guy, check his ID, etc etc. He's not too happy, but now that there's 3 guys with badges having a chat with him, he's starting to calm down, but still being kind of a passive-aggressive about the whole thing ("Why are you guys on my case?!"). As I'm interviewing him, I ask one of the officers to run his ID through WACIC/NCIC. Turns out he had an active misdemeanor warrant for DWLS, and we let him know this.
PD1: You have a warrant out for your arrest, did you know that?
Suspect:
PD and me:
In the end, the police decided not to take him in (it was only a $1000 warrant for a non-violent offense), and we all gave him a stern talking to about how/why the police perceived him as suspicious, that we weren't discriminating, and how we're just doing our jobs, etc. Oh yeah, and to take care of his warrant, of course.
Finally, an incident where I was able to respond to verbal harassment instead of just taking it in stride. Incidents like these are when I'm glad we have a good relationship with the police here.
On a recent night, around 0000 hours, I observed two police patrol vehicles parked on the street of this neighborhood. My duties include documenting all police responses to the property, so I stood on the street waiting for the police officers to return from their call.
As I'm waiting, a BAM (black adult male) storms up to me and angrily asks me why I'm writing down his license plate. He's referring to the luxury SUV that I happen to be standing next to. I did have have my notepad open and was writing in it, but I certainly was not writing down his plate and told him this. He demanded that I prove it by showing him my notepad, which I did to pacify him (it didn't contain any sensitive information). He then demanded to know why the police were present in the area, to which I replied that I did not know. He then stormed off ORDERING me to not write down his plate, and mumbling about the police hassling him and how we're all stereotyping. I then observed him waiting outside one of the housing units with a friend.
20 minutes later, the police officers are finally done with their call (unrelated to this jerk) and exit a residence and start walking back to their vehicles. They're intercepted by this guy who angrily demands their names, badge numbers, etc etc (backstory: When the officers first arrived on scene for this other call, they observed a very expensive vehicle parked in the middle of the projects at midnight, with people running upto the car and money being exchanged. As any good officer would, he questioned the driver briefly). The officers give him their information and resume walking back to their cars (the jerk is still yelling about profiling and what not) when they spot me.
PD (yelling loud enough for the jerk to hear): Hey security officer! You're the security officer for here, right? You have authority and jurisdiction over this property, right?
Me: Yeah.
PD: Well you got a suspicious male loitering over there on your property! You should check him out! We'd be glad to assist if he needs to be trespassed!
Me: Sounds good.
So myself, backed by two burly police officers now approach the man.
PD (to the suspect): Hey, this security officer wants to talk to you.
So I proceed to question the guy, check his ID, etc etc. He's not too happy, but now that there's 3 guys with badges having a chat with him, he's starting to calm down, but still being kind of a passive-aggressive about the whole thing ("Why are you guys on my case?!"). As I'm interviewing him, I ask one of the officers to run his ID through WACIC/NCIC. Turns out he had an active misdemeanor warrant for DWLS, and we let him know this.
PD1: You have a warrant out for your arrest, did you know that?
Suspect:
PD and me:
In the end, the police decided not to take him in (it was only a $1000 warrant for a non-violent offense), and we all gave him a stern talking to about how/why the police perceived him as suspicious, that we weren't discriminating, and how we're just doing our jobs, etc. Oh yeah, and to take care of his warrant, of course.
Finally, an incident where I was able to respond to verbal harassment instead of just taking it in stride. Incidents like these are when I'm glad we have a good relationship with the police here.
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