Do people hate us?

[junkyarddog]

Americans really don't understand anything about security. We and traditional law enforcemenet are in the crime business. We are proactive the Police are reactive. Americans have not learned anything from 911.

Just as I was about to blast this post as being a jumble of gross generalizations and unqualified personal bias, (which the above part certainly IS), I read the rest of it.

Those who respond to crime are heros and those who prevent crime are just "security" It's all about perception.

Gotta agree with this. Police and emergency services in general have nothing to do with preventing disasters, they simply clean up the mess. If security is doing its job (usually), the disaster is averted or its affects minimalized.

Just be careful about forming conclusions based on personal bias. Which is what the first part of your post is. Law Enforcement and the general culture are not the same everywhere. These differences are reflected in security.

In security, in America, our job begins and ends with protecting the interests of our customer. If these interests are properly protected, a side effect is that disaster and general crime is reduced. In security, we are not in the crime business. Not everything that can harm our customer is a crime and not every crime can harm our customer. That is the long and short of it, end of story.

[junkyarddog]

Exactly, coming down either way. Not, not doing anything because it is unlikely that management will act on the offence. That was my point.

Management backing is so important, but even when it is lacking in issue 1, there are a dozen of issues they will back on, so it is a matter of catching the person who violates issue 1, violating any of the many other issues.

Stupid example, employee Doe likes to park his forklift in front of the fire exit n bldg 10. You tell him about it, document it, and submit the documentation to management. Management might not care so much right now, but you know if there is a fire resulting in fatalities because the exit was blocked, management is going to come down on security for letting the exit be blocked. That means you ride Mr Doe's @ss with every petty thing you possibly can until he either stops blocking the exit or crosses a line that management will actually back you on.

There is a sick, maybe pathetic, satisfaction in seeing your $12.00/hr security officers cow $80k+ a year office workers.

[Security]

Well, I just found out at work today that our department keeps a camcorder in the office (probably the closest thing we have to CCTV - lol), so from now on when I pass through that parking lot on my tours I will bring that along with me. I absolutely cannot wait to see her face next time she decides to drive like a maniac in front of me and I pull out the camcorder, hold it up, show her that I just caught everything on tape, wave goodbye and walk away. Ah, poetic justice at its finest!!

Thanks for the tips, everyone. I have a feeling this won't be an issue for much longer.

Erik

[bpdblue]

Security, if you can get her on tape, you have scored big.

Good Luck to you.

[Cactus]

Hahaha, I have a new story about people hating me. So I was working for a department store over the past couple of weeks, and these kids came in on my last shift there (Sunday). They were very polite at first even asked me if I wanted a coffee which I declined. Anywho I am to do patrols there anytime that suspicious people enter the store, high visibility deterrent right...

So I am walking by furniture when I find the 3 kids who walked in on top of the shelves sitting on display models! Obviously a safety hazard, so I tell them to get down. I explain the situation to them as to why they cannot be doing that and everything seems fine, just a warning telling them not to do that or fool around since this is a place of business. They are very polite and say they were "just trying the chairs out" and they didn't know they couldn't. Obviously they knew they couldn't I mean come on how many places let you climb all over their shelves...

Anyways I pull out my notebook check the time and record it in my book so I can fill out my report later with the correct time of the occurance and full details on the matter. I start filling it out when they catch on that I know how to use a pen and paper. "You ****ing rent-a-cop piece of **** what the **** are you writing? **** you man we didn't know." Yup, thats a direct quote... LOL needless to say they were removed from the property for being a safety hazard after I explained what happened to management. So myself and 3 managers politely asked them to leave due to the fact that they had no money to buy anything nor did they plan to buy anything. We were then told we would be sued for removing them "without a good enough reason". LOL sorry guys, its private property if management doesn't want you there, you must leave immediately.

[Black Caesar]

Those who respond to crime are heros and those who prevent crime are just "security" It's all about perception.

Gotta agree with this. Police and emergency services in general have nothing to do with preventing disasters, they simply clean up the mess. If security is doing its job (usually), the disaster is averted or its affects minimalized.

All of what both of you say is true, but In my opinion you can't really worry about any of that, which is something I've said here before.

I apply it to my own peculiar posistion even though I've noticed the irony.
When I was a reserve (and later part time paid) patrolman for a small town PD covering anowhere town of maybe 1500 people), I got all kinds of respect because I was a "street cop".

Even though most people couldn't find my little town on a map and didn't understand that being a "street cop" in a town with only a dozen "streets" ain't that hard (lol) i still got so much love, my friends would introduce me as thier "cop buddy" and people would ask me who I worked for, they wouldn't blink when I told them even though they never heard of the town.

Well then I "F'd up" and went to work a a Campus Police officer for These Guys using the exact same Texas Peace Officer's license I had to have to work in that small town. In that small town my "authority" basically stopped at the city limits unless I was in fresh pursuit, in this new job I my Statutory Authority extends from 1 end of Dallas County to the other and part-way into Denton County lol.

It's a political subdivsion of the state government with an elected (not appointed) Board of Trustees; with 63,000 College (credit) students, 21,000 continuing education (non-credit) students and 7,000 employees (and that's not counting the thousands of non-affiliated citizens who use our facilites everyday), 7 colleges with billions of dollars worth of property equipment and lands, and a 400 million dollar operating budget. All of it funded not only by county taxes, but state taxes, federal taxes and tuition (some of which is indirect federal tax money in the form of student grants). All of which means that every single tax paying citizen of the United States is a stakeholder in my college district.

And I am one of only 125 people (110 sworn peace officers and 15 civilian support staffers) who are charged with defending ALL OF IT. 125 people standing between 90,000 innocents and CHAOS. A real "thin blue line" if ever there was such a thing.

The Campus police job is more about protection than enforcement (although there IS a serious enforcement mandate by law, something I dind't have in private security because Texas law can never compell a private citizen to arrest someone), and what we have to protect (this monster college district) is MAJOR..........

.......Yet I got more respect driving around a dusty little east texas town in a beat up crown vic..... If I tell people "I'm a cop" now, then tell them I work for a college distirct, they look at me with that "oh, you're just a campus cop" look lol. One guy I knew even asked me "why did you stop being a real cop?" Of course I told him "the extra 10k a year the campus cop job paid compared to the "real cop" job" (or would have had I been full time down there lol).

Is it fair, Is it right, did it even make sense? Hell no. Is it irritating to deal with what amounts to public ignorance? Hell yes.

Does it matter? Hell no.
I know who I am, what my job is and how important it is, even if others don't acknowledge it or understand it or give me credit for those 9 freaking months I spent in the academy to earn the right to do it, so what does it matter? At the end of the day, that knowledge, the knowledge of doing something good, protecting something that is right in a world of wrong (and the pay check I use to feed my young'unz ) is what matters.

Some things will never change, all of us here need to recognize that and keep on truckin, doin what we gotta do to protect the people..

[Hank1]

We were then told we would be sued for removing them "without a good enough reason".

LOL! Everyone is a Lawyer! LOL!

[SecTrainer]

If I tell people "I'm a cop" now, then tell them I work for a college distirct, they look at me with that "oh, you're just a campus cop" look lol. One guy I knew even asked me "why did you stop being a real cop?"

There's always a hierarchy, it seems. When you're a small-town cop, citizens respect you but larger-town cops, county deputies and troopers are "higher" than you on the pecking order of "respect". When you move to a larger agency, you move up the "ladder", so to speak. Move to a smaller agency, you move down. Within a given agency, you move "up" with promotions and awards, or you move "down" if you get stuck at one level.

In every case above, you might be doing an exemplary and an important job that has its own challenges and requires its own skills. Trust me, your people skills really need to be very good as a small-town cop because there's a much higher percentage of people who can "have your badge" and believe they have enough clout to get away with driving home from the pub drunk. I mean, what's the chance that you're gonna be stopping the mayor's son for DWI when you're a cop in Chicago? And, if you do, you have a powerful organization to back you up. A small-town cop might very well be working for a chief who lives in fear of his job from everyone in town who is on, or has a relative who is on, the town council.

Another thing about small-town cops is how often they work without backup, or with very little backup, or with backup from the county who are always 15 minutes away from town when something does go down....and crime DOES go down in small towns. Crooks have cars and a lot of them like small-town targets. Read the newspaper. And yet, it can be much more difficult to convince the residents and business owners in small towns to take ordinary precautions that city-dwellers don't think twice about. "We never used to lock our doors here" is the common comment you hear after a double-homicide in a small town.

College campuses are, in every respect, towns (and some are not so small, either!) where people live, work, learn, shop, socialize and recreate. What makes college police work unique is the higher percentage of the population who are both adolescent and vulnerable than a "real" town has. (There is now evidence that the part of the brain that governs "caution" and "self-control" is not fully developed until the late twenties, which explains many adolescent behaviors.) Many of these "citizens" are on their own for the first time in their lives, and are not handling it well.

Crooks love college campuses, with their high percentage of fancy cars and high-dollar sound systems, with young foolish rape victims vulnerable to attack, with predictable patterns of drunkenness among the "citizens", and buildings filled with high-dollar technology and other contents waiting to be ripped off. Many campuses have shops carrying merchandise, to be robbed and burglarized. Many also have health centers, daycare centers and laboratories that are working with nuclear and/or other hazardous materials - with all of the risks each of those targets presents.

Worse, college campuses provide convenient venues for the shooter who wants to make a statement against society and go out in a "blaze of glory", and are logical targets for terrorists. Domestic terrorists like PETA have already hit campus animal labs numerous times, and many universities work on top-secret defense projects.

More and more universities are creating special "senior housing complexes" to attract the explosion of seniors who are retiring and now want to live in proximity to the educational and cultural opportunities that campuses provide. (This phenomenon is sweeping the country and is well-discussed in the book "Age Power" by Dychtwald, among others.) You will now find college towns figuring prominently among the various lists of "best places to live" for seniors...and universities are seeking to cash in on this trend by creating living spaces for this population on campus.

Internal fraud and embezzlement are also no strangers to college campuses. Attracting large government grants, there are many opportunities for this kind of financial malfeasance, which must be vigorously investigated.

Colleges have been among the most favored targets for identity theft.

Mental health issues such as depression, rage, anxiety and suicide are demonstrably higher on college campuses than in the general population, and these obviously present policing challenges.

Obviously, campuses host many kinds of special events, from conferences of world scientists to political, sporting and cultural events. These strain the resources of any campus police force.

Many universities have "downtown extension campuses" located in or near areas of profound economic and social blight (high-crime areas).

The political climate on college campuses is also very complex and challenging. Alumni (especially large donors), tenured faculty members, administrators and student "political action groups" as well as many special interests from the surrounding community all seek to exert influence (which is sometimes illegitimate in its form) on both the campus police department and on individual officers while performing their duties. There may be no other venue in the world where expectations of the police department to do more than merely respond to crime are higher, but yet where the general attitude toward the police among the "populace" is more ambivalent.

In short, the modern college or university presents a venue where absolutely every type of crime can and does occur, and where significant populations of people are deeply dependent on campus law enforcement to be able to conduct their lives in safety. Anyone who thinks campus policing in the 21st century is anything BUT "real policing" has his head up his arse so far that he's got a panoramic view of his tonsils. In fact, if he really knew what he was talking about he might instead argue that modern campus policing is actually the epitome of what policing is all about. It takes a very special type of officer to succeed in this venue, and many in our own community who might think otherwise could never (and should never) be campus police officers.

[Tennsix]

I used to for for a city PD and a county SO. Now that I work for a university PD I do the very same type of work. Armed robberies, car chases, burglaries, sexual assualts, the occasional homicide, fights, peepers, shoplifters, traffic etc. My campus (the univ has several campuses) has a population of about 45,000. Throw in another 50-60,000 for a football game. Anytime someone plays the "you're only a campus cop", I ask them a few simple questions. Would you ask me if I were a real physician if I worked for one of the university's hospitals? Would you aks me if I were a real bus driver if I worked for the university transportation department? Why are the police any different?

Sorry, touchy subject for me.

[Black Caesar]

I used to for for a city PD and a county SO. Now that I work for a university PD I do the very same type of work. Armed robberies, car chases, burglaries, sexual assualts, the occasional homicide, fights, peepers, shoplifters, traffic etc. My campus (the univ has several campuses) has a population of about 45,000. Throw in another 50-60,000 for a football game. Anytime someone plays the "you're only a campus cop", I ask them a few simple questions. Would you ask me if I were a real physician if I worked for one of the university's hospitals? Would you aks me if I were a real bus driver if I worked for the university transportation department? Why are the police any different?

Sorry, touchy subject for me.

Somewhat for me too, but I use it as an oppurtunity to educate. Honestly it doesn't bother me much now, but back when I started in '98 (I was 24 lol, I was only 23 when I worked for that city) It bugged the hell out of me lol.

I once (during my oversensitive rookie year ) breifly dated a college nurse who worked at a differant campus. She told me "real cops work for the city". So i asked miss soon to be ex-girlfriend "how would you take it if someone told you you weren't a "real" nurse becuase real nurses only work in hospitals?".

She looked at me cross eyed and said "I'd show them my nursing license and my my nursing degree and say TAKE THAT!" I handed her my TCLEOSE license, promised to show her my certificate from the police academy and said "TAKE THAT". She stared at me for a second and said "good point" lol.

I've done just about the same thing with some of the faculty, who themselves are touchy at the suggestion that despite their advanced degrees (masters, Ph.Ds, Ed.Ds ect ect) they are "lesser" than faculty members at 4 year colleges (ie how can you look down on me when you work for the SAME community college I do lol, you ain't at Harvard now are you professor ).

It (educating them rather than getting pissy with them) has been pretty effective actually, changed a few perceptions. I always suggest that route for my buddies in private security , like my Father in law who works on a federal contract at a VA Hospital. something about catching more flies with honey......

---

It's not a big deal really, but we're people, and anyone who invests such a signifigant chunk of their lives (typically a couple years of college + a few more months in an academy that's no picnic lol) would likewise be touchy.

Nowadays I just laugh it off while I wait for that monthly pay check (man getting paid once a month SUCKS)...

[LPAjh9558]

Has anyone ever had a problem when it came to working certain "schedules?" I don't know how different security and other jobs are from retail, but with every job that I've had it seems that this is a recurring issue. Would you think that at any time it's personal when the company has a conflict with you over this or is it just "policy" that they're following?

[OccamsRazor]

There's always a hierarchy, it seems. When you're a small-town cop, citizens respect you but larger-town cops, county deputies and troopers are "higher" than you on the pecking order of "respect". When you move to a larger agency, you move up the "ladder", so to speak. Move to a smaller agency, you move down. Within a given agency, you move "up" with promotions and awards, or you move "down" if you get stuck at one level.

But to be fair, that 'hierarchy' exists everywhere. The troopers look down on County guys, county looks down on city, big city looks down on small town, city/county guys look down on feds, armed guards look down on unarmed ones, open-carry guys look down on CCWers, retail clerks look down on stockboys, waiter look down on bussers, managers look down on supply clerks, teachers look down on janitors, etc etc etc ad infinitum.

The trick here is a simple litmus test:

Are YOU happy with your station in life?

If the answer's yes, so be it. Who has to listen to someone belittle them?

If no, CHANGE IT.

[SecTrainer]

But to be fair, that 'hierarchy' exists everywhere.

Exactly what I was trying to say. Human beings seem to need to be "better than" someone else. We will create "pecking orders" even if we have to literally invent totally bogus "differences" in order to defend our "position" in the "hierarchy".

We seem to feel that "respect" is a zero-sum game - that there is only so much "respect" to go around. Whatever respect your agency gathers has to come at the expense of respect for my agency.

So, if your agency deserves a certain amount of respect, there is less respect available for my agency. Put another way, elevating my agency in the "hierarchy" means putting your agency "down".

This is stupid of course. In fact, no one would actually express it that way because when you do it even looks stupid. But, there you have it...human beings think about limitless things like love and respect as if they were tangible economic goods, which we understand in terms of "scarcity" or "limited supply". There's only so much oil in the world, so the only way for me to have more is for you to have less.

Love and respect, honor and admiration - none of these are economic items limited by "scarcity", but we think like children: The only way for Mom to love me more is if I can get her to love you less....so I tattle on you, or I do something "special" for Mom that you can't do. Neener neener neener.

We don't need these hierarchies. I understand what state troopers do and respect them for it. I also understand what a cop in a small town does, and respect him for it. Ditto, college police, US Marshals, the FBI and private security agencies. I don't have to "steal" or "withhold" respect from any agency in order to have an ample "supply" of respect and due regard for every agency. I have a limitless supply of respect and admiration to give to any agency or to any officer that is worthy of respect, however few or many that might be. I don't have to worry that one day I'll reach into my "respect trunk" and discover that I've run out.

[junkyarddog]

Weird, seems like I replied and the reply is not there. Must not have clicked hard enough (ha).

Anyways, my feeling is that I don't care what other people think of me in terms of status. As long as I achieve the goals I set for myself and strive to be the absolute best at whatever I do, I am happy.

As far as respect for law enforcement, to me that has to do with having an informed opinion. I respect federal police least of all and the county sheriff most of all. This because I advocate small government, and a weak federal government with extremely limited police powers.

In most counties the Sheriff is the top law enforcement officer. That means that no other police, be they federal or state, can take action in said county without permission from that counties sheriff. Of course, this is usually over looked and most of the time federal and state police do whatever they like and the sheriff goes along with it. But he does not have to. There are recent examples of sheriffs kicking federal police out of their counties and/or "pulling rank" and ordering the fed to submit each proposed federal police action in his county to the sheriff for review which he will either OK or shoot down.

The "status hierarchy" mentioned in previous post (going from the largest agencies down to the smallest, armed guards to unarmed, open carry to cc), is really just a hierarchy of lethal force. That is, you are more respected the more lethal force that your agency can muster.

This attitude is a real attitude, and to me it is kind of scary. My respect of any authority is based in how closely that authority conforms to the ethical standards established by classical liberalism , and manifest in our own Constitution. To me, it is not so much about what agency can muster the most force, but rather what agency best carries out the mandate of our constitution and contributes most to individual liberty.

just my 250 cents.

[Tennsix]

The Prosecutor or the District Attorney is the chief law enforcement officer, not the Sheriff. I have worked in city, county and state law enforcement. I have NEVER heard that the Sheriff is in charge of all LE functions and that all other agencies must operate under the auspices of the Sheriff’s Office.

You are way out there...