Commercial Integrator + Security Sales July 2024 - 51

Feffer: In Los Angeles County, if you
are arrested for almost all crimes, it is
the position of the L.A. Superior Court
that cash bails should not be allowed.
It's basically catch-and-release for what
previously had been significant felonies,
such as car theft, grand theft, residential
burglaries, and other substantial crimes.
People are simply, in many cases, cited
in the field or at most booked and then
released.
Stone: It's a systemic problem all over the
country. No matter what state you attach
to it, it's the same. It's the degree of it
that might be a little bit different. It's the
lack of trust in police. As Mitch said, the
political aspect of it has gotten untenable.
The leadership and law enforcement
agencies now are not doing what they're
supposed to.
Tavera: You're only having chiefs for an
average stay of two years. There's a true
brain drain in leadership.
Stone: Even in the medium-sized
departments where chiefs would stay, for
lack of a better term die in their chair,
they're getting out because of the political
atmosphere and the drain. It's a different
aspect. It's a different world we live in.
It's got to change because the inmates are
running the asylum.
Can you speak about ways private
security companies can help law
enforcement as a force multiplier or
in dealing with some of the challenges
related to fighting crime and being
more effective?
Bushey: A big issue is that there's only
so many police resources out there.
To the extent that private industry
can more quickly identify the greatest
targets, that enables law enforcement
to send the resources where they're
needed the most.
One of the really nice things about
security technology like remote guarding,
for example, is it allows us to see a
crime in progress and so it can receive
priority response from the limited
resources that do exist.
'The interesting thing
is you'll hear the
governor spout that
we have a reduction
in violent crime. He
doesn't talk about
property crime.
Property crime
affects you in almost
the same way.'
- Mitch Tavera
Private security is denuded in California,
especially if they carry a firearm.
So, guards have no powers of arrest
other than what a standard citizen has.
They don't affect law enforcement as far
as making arrests. They are merely a
deterrent.
Stone: When you pay a guard or watchman
$15 an hour, that's what you're
going to get. They're not going to take
the chance that they did 25 years ago.
They don't have any skin in the game as
far as the property or looking to protect
anybody.
The corporations are telling their
employees that we'll fire you if you take
any action to stop a theft. The employee
becomes a victim. Police are put in the
middle. There's nowhere to go.
Bushey: Another issue of significance
is that private security captures things
relatively well with respect to audio and
video. This enables police agencies to ultimately
get complaints from the district
attorney and handle things that way.
In many instances, we're able to
capture images of a crime in progress for
later follow-up investigation. Organized
retail theft, which has become a major
problem, is a good example.
Although security guards nor surveillance
may be able to stop it as it's
occurring, they're still very valuable in
long-term investigations. Oftentimes,
intelligence comes from the security company
itself and good surveillance.
Niven: There's a very robust effort to
identify people who have been involved in
crimes. Private security companies play a
big role in that.
Stone: People are taking it amongst
themselves as far as security goes. You
take housing developments, HOAs and
things like that, where five or six years
ago nobody really cared because they felt
relatively secure.
Now, it looks like a movie studio when
you walk around the neighborhood with
Ring doorbells and cameras and all of that
because they have to protect themselves.
While private security can capture an
event, probably 90% of the time they don't
capture the event live. It's more about
going back and looking through film to
aid the police. But having eyes on crime
in real-time through remote guarding is
making a difference.
Niven: Another aspect in which remote
guarding helps law enforcement is
the real-time information supplied to
responding officers lessens their endangerment
to things like suspects resisting
arrest or violently confronting police. It
tells law enforcement what they're going
to encounter when they respond to the
crime in progress.
The private security remote guarding
provider can identify whether the
suspects have weapons and vector the
police response to where the suspects
may be lying in wait because they are
able to see them in real-time on video
July 2024 | Commercial Integrator+Security Sales & Integration
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