Post
by Benjamin Bice » Tue Sep 13, 2016 2:46 am
Letter from a security guard.
September 2, 2016
Colin,
*A little background information on me: I am currently a licensed security officer living in Central Florida. I have a Criminal Justice Technology degree, class G & D Florida security licenses, National Registry EMT and Florida EMT licenses*
I’ve worked as a security guard for multiple security companies for a number of years now, doing mostly routine armed security work at different locations, some locations safer than others. There is one post (Jobsite) in particular, which allowed me to gain insight into the black community in a larger sense. A black bank in a bad area of my city, the bank employees are all black and about 99% of the customers and residents in the area are black. Save for the police and fire rescue departments, I was the only white person in this part of town. I was exposed to all types of black people at this bank, young & old, educated and not so much. It was at this post that I realized how important race is to the black community. It became very clear, very quickly that black people think, eat, breathe and sleep race.
Thugs are the same all over the place, so, nothing new in that regard. What struck me and motivated me to write this letter were the statements from the black bank staff members and the more prominent black community customers who would occasionally frequent this bank. I was also exposed to something else which gave me a better understanding of how blacks viewed political and other newsworthy issues, black newspapers (free at this bank). After a few months of working at this bank, the employees began to open up and talk “freely” around me. The staff consisted of 2 female bank tellers, 1 female assistant manager, 1 male manager and 1 male district manager.
Here are some of their statements to me, each other and customers. (None of these statements were made as jokes or sparked laughter in any way). The assistant manager had this to say to me in anger, “how can you vote for Donald Trump, don’t you know he wants to bring back slavery?” The morning after the black police officer shot and killed Sylville Smith for pulling a gun on the officer, one of the tellers whispered (with an expression of concern on her face) to the assistant manager who was standing nearby, “now they’re shooting their own kind”. I also overheard one of the tellers say to a customer, “You are in trouble if Trump gets elected, he is going to deport anyone who is not white”. I won’t state her name in this letter, but a prominent black TV reality talk show host in the community (who recently received an award from Barak Obama) walked into the lobby just days after the Philando Castile shooting and Dallas PD murders and said to the staff at the counter, “These police shootings need to stop”.
Now, at first I assumed she meant the murder of the Dallas Police officers, but I was wrong. She never mentioned Dallas. Instead she continued on about Philando Castile. She said, “Thank God that woman (Lavish Diamond Reynolds-suspects girlfriend), had the courage to stay calm and film that, I would have been going crazy, cussing the cops up and down. Good thing she did film it because, they would have murdered her too”. None of these comments were followed by anything other than total agreement from all who were present (except me).
In the black newspapers, I noticed a common theme among the commentaries, everything in one way or another ended up being about or having something to do with slavery. It was as if slavery wasn’t mentioned, black people might forget about it? And there were articles with topics such as, “how to dress your kids so they won’t appear threatening to police”. Every story was about black people only or how something was affecting only black people.
The final straw for me came in the form of an incident on one of those days when welfare checks and social security checks are issued on the same day. Huge lines form at the bank on these days, which leads to fights in the lines at the lobby area. One of the tellers thought it was funny when these days came around and liked to tease me by saying, “it’s gonna be a crazy day, you better do something” or “are you ready for this?” To this day I’m not sure exactly what she meant by those things.
The line was almost out the door when a very large middle aged black man came in and began to attempt to start a fight with 2 females standing in line for no apparent reason. The two women eventually began to ignore the man. The man then decided he was going to cut in line in front of 6 customers. This of course sparked outrage throughout the line. I stepped in and asked the man to return to his original spot in line. The man began to cuss me out and refused. I then warned him that the police would soon be called and that didn’t work either. I then yelled at the individual to get back in line. He immediately complied with no further incident or disruption and the bank fell silent. This was not the incident which caused me to request a transfer to a different post. What transpired afterward is what did it for me.
Later that day. I was called into the manager’s office to speak with both the manager and assistant manager. They congratulated me on stopping the fight with no cursing on my part, no injuries to anyone (including myself), no police needed, no fire rescue needed, no shots fired, no sabre spray used, no baton used and no Taser used.
I’m joking of course, that’s not what happened in the office. I was told that I had frightened everyone in the bank and that nobody would remember what the thug (they didn’t use that word) had done, only that the security guy had scared everyone. They then proceeded to tell me that they can’t afford to lose 10 customers for fear of coming into the bank because of something I had done to control one unruly customer. They recommended that next time I physically remove aggressive trouble makers (thugs) and have a chat with them in the parking lot away from customers. This advice is coming from individuals who have no knowledge of law, security procedures or officer safety rules.
Needless to say, I knew it was time to leave. My family and I are happy I made it out alive.
xx
