Who’s Keeping an Eye on the Security Guards?
Security guard William D. Owen arrived for his 1995 job interview in posh Emerald Bay with a sharp suit, a firm handshake and a state license that assured his soon-to-be employers that he was a sentry to be trusted.
But before long, he was leaving his graveyard shift at the exclusive oceanside enclave with his pockets stuffed with new credit cards and checks pulled from the mail boxes of vacationing millionaires. Owen, it turned out, was actually a three-time felon who had found himself a delicious opportunity.
“For somebody like him, it was like a kid in a candy store,” said Fountain Valley Police Det. Leslie Roberts, who found drawers full of stolen mail at Owen’s home. “Believe me, this was a happy, happy guy.”
Owen was later convicted on mail theft charges, but the incident left Emerald Bay residents with a deep sense of betrayal--and much of their anger was directed at the state agency that somehow missed or ignored his criminal history while doing a background check.
“The system simply let them down,” is how Roberts puts it.
Owen’s case is an extreme example of the state’s ongoing problems regulating the booming security guard industry, which includes a contingent of criminals within its ranks and a troublesome faction of fly-by-night companies who offer low prices through even lower employee standards.
Corruption in the industry is hard to pin down, in part because of a jumbled licensing system that can require some guards to carry as many as three state permits while others can work legally outside government scrutiny altogether.
While armed guards do not get a permit until the FBI checks their criminal record nationwide, unarmed guards are handed temporary permits with no background checks at all--and later receive full licenses after only their California histories are scanned.
“The way it is now, an ax murderer from Georgia can come to California to be a security guard and we would never know it,” says John A. Nickols, who took over last year as chief of the state’s Bureau of Security and Investigative Services.
The agency regulates only contract guards--those who work for guard companies that hire them out. The guards who are employed directly by a business, be it a corner pub or a million-dollar housing community, are not regulated by the state--although many of those guards do voluntarily get licenses to show their prospective employers.
But even then, as in the case of Owen, the slow-moving system can fail miserably.
Those problems will be central to an unusual meeting Tuesday in Santa Ana that will bring Nickols together with industry leaders and two dozen police officials from Orange and Los Angeles counties at the offices of state Assemblyman Jim Morrissey (R-Santa Ana).
The state says there are more than 11,500 licensed guards in Orange County, and more than 164,000 across the state. Thousands more work without licenses for private businesses but still wear a uniform and perhaps a badge, making them instant figures of trust for most people.
How many of them are criminals? There are no statistics available for individual counties, but last year there were 1,934 guard licenses revoked, suspended or denied for criminal behavior statewide. That number excludes the guards who need licenses but simply don’t get them, the population officials concede is most likely to exploit their position for criminal gain.
Locally, police blotters provide an anecdotal glimpse of the guard problem. In Orange County, guards have been arrested in recent years on suspicion of child molestation, assault, armed robbery, extortion, burglary and possession of stolen property--almost all of them allegedly committed while in uniform.
Some of the most recent incidents include:
* A Newport Coast guard facing charges of terrorism and unlawful detainment after allegedly pulling a gun on a 26-year-old woman last month and trying to snap handcuffs on her. The woman grabbed the weapon away and beat him with it.
* A Fountain Valley guard was arrested in June after two girls, ages 5 and 11, accused him of molesting them. Charges against the 40-year-old guard were dropped when frustrated detectives could find no evidence to corroborate the claims.
* A Carlsbad guard last year turned himself in to Costa Mesa detectives on his trail for allegedly duping 2,000 business owners into paying him $20 each for bogus dry-cleaning bills in a far-reaching mail order scam.
The majority of guards are considered honest and hard-working. But Nickols concedes that a small percentage of all the state’s security guards--licensed and unlicensed--are “bad apples” who seek to exploit their jobs for criminal gain.
Trust has never been more important in the industry, which has seen a 19% increase in the number of guards in the state in the past five years and a 31% increase in Orange County alone. In Southern California, security guards outnumber police officers about three to one.
The boom can be traced to a resurgence in home and commercial construction--along with a public perception of worsening crime. At a time when business is brisk for security guard companies, the industry is faced with cleaning up its image and trying to improve an admittedly shaky relationship with law enforcement.
“Barney Fife--that’s what most cops think of guards,” said L. Earle Graham, a vice president of Newport Beach-based Westec Security Inc. and a former Westminster police officer. “They think of a scared guy with one bullet in his pocket whose hands are shaking. Or, worse, they think of a guy who may not be a friend to law enforcement.”
Concerns about guards’ reliability come at a time when several studies and pilot projects suggest these “private police” could be useful in extending the reach of law enforcement by working in tandem with cops.
But that potential will likely only be realized if the industry can improve their standing with their sworn and uniformed counterparts.
Indeed, many officers interviewed for this story said they are distrustful of security guards, especially independent contractors or those employed by small companies.
Police in Santa Ana, for instance, arrested a group of guards several years ago who were later convicted of armed robbery charges for shaking down drunk bar patrons and recently arrived immigrants.
“They wore uniforms very similar to Santa Ana [police] uniforms, and that caused a great deal of fear with the people they robbed and directly impacted public trust in law enforcement,” Santa Ana Police Lt. Mike Foote said. “That’s very concerning to us.”
The Bureau of Security and Investigative Services regulates only licensed guards and the companies for which they work.
It has no choice but to ignore the portion of the industry that side-steps state regulation altogether: the unarmed, uniformed guards hired directly by managers of bars, apartment complexes, factories or other businesses.
“For those businesses, it’s an issue of buyer beware,” said Nickols, a former security director at the Los Angeles Times and a onetime LAPD officer. “If you hire people as your own security officer, it’s like hiring a bank teller or filling any other sensitive job. You try to find out their background and you take your chances.”
Los Angeles Police Det. Richard Rudell, who works on the city’s Police Commission unit that regulates permits for security guards, said abuses are widespread.
“Every time we go out, we can find guard violations,” he said. “A guy in a uniform at a pool hall, wearing a gun, with no [state license]. If all we wanted to do was go after them, then that’s all we would have time to do.”
The majority of businesses, however, ask security job applicants to show state guard licenses before they are hired and some also check local court records. But that approach still failed for the community association at Emerald Bay, which accepted Owen in part because he presented a valid guard license when he was hired in September 1994.
Emerald Bay community association officials declined comment on the matter, but in a letter, the community’s former security director blasted the state guard agency that gave Owen a license despite a criminal history of burglary and drug charges dating back to 1981.
“An error of this magnitude is unacceptable,” the letter states. “A large community was placed at great risk as a result of negligence by someone in your organization.”
Nickols says if Emerald Bay officials had called the state agency to confirm Owen’s license was in good standing, they would have been told Owen’s file showed a background check revealing just two of his convictions. It’s unclear why Owen’s license wasn’t seized after his background was revealed, but Nickols concedes that the state erred.
“There’s no question this is a bad guy and he had no business having a license,” Nickols said.
Dealing with unlicensed guards and guards who use their jobs to violate the law will be just one of the issues scheduled for discussion Tuesday, when police officials from Anaheim, Fullerton, Huntington Park, Santa Monica and other area cities will come together to air their concerns.
Other topics likely to be discussed include:
* The state screening system for would-be guards. Critics want to quicken the pace of background checks, which can take 120 days or more. Others question why only California crime records are checked for unarmed guards, allowing out-of-state felons to side-step detection.
* The quality of training for guards. The minimum standards set by the state are in some instances just a fraction of the training requirements in other states. One example: In California, a person can become a licensed, armed guard after 14 hours of training, compared to the 40 hours required in states such as Florida and Alaska.
* New industry standards for guard uniforms. Many in the industry are pushing for regulations that mandate uniforms markedly different from clothing worn by police to distinguish between private and public protectors. Patches and car markings that clearly name security companies will also bring more accountability for guards and their bosses, reformers say.
* Better enforcement of existing regulations. A small team of state investigators is responsible for policing the more than 72,000 licensed guards in Orange and Los Angeles counties.
* Stiffer penalties. A guard company that employs unlicensed guards currently faces a $12 fine under state law. Nichols wants that hiked to $57--which would match the price legitimate companies pay for a new guard’s license and state background check.
* A new digital fingerprinting system. Nickols says the computerized scanners, which are already in use in some California police stations, link up with state Department of Justice records and hold much promise for streamlining background checks and tracking guards.
The debate within the industry over several of these issues often pits large, corporate security companies against the smaller, more local operations who argue that more regulation and higher standards will push them out of business.
“There are a few high-powered corporations who would like to push us little guys out, and one way to do that is to make it more expensive for us to open the doors,” said the owner of one Orange County security guard company who spoke on condition that he not be identified.
Those smaller companies are also competing with the fly-by-night competitors who can offer the lowest prices by hiring unlicensed guards to avoid paying license fees and standard wages. The industry wage ranges from $6 to $10 an hour. Unlicensed guards generally earn $4 to $5 an hour.
Daniel Hernandez, a 30-year-old native of Santa Ana, says he has seen excess and corruption during his nine years as an Orange County guard, and his efforts to blow the whistle has cost him several jobs.
“A lot of people want to turn the other way, to let things go,” said Hernandez, who is working with Morrissey to fashion new legislation on guard uniforms and standards. “I’ve seen guards steal, do break-ins, beat people up and everything. At some bars they sit with police scanners and tell the drug dealers to go out the back when the cops come.”
Indeed, a bar guard was arrested in Santa Ana several years ago with a police radio that was supposed to be in the possession of the Police Department’s narcotics unit, and local cops say they often have to contend with guards who are hired by shady bar owners to shield back-room drug trade.
Military retirees, former police officers and college students are among the people who gravitate to the job, but the long solitary hours, the access to valuables and the opportunity to exploit authority can also attract a different crowd, Hernandez said.
“A lot of times in this business, you get guys who want to be bullies or you get guys who couldn’t become cops,” he said with a shrug. “And people trust them because they wear a badge.”
But Hernandez said it wasn’t long before he gained some insight into the underside of the profession while working as a guard at a Santa Ana motel. On nights when he worked, the motel was relatively quiet, he said. But when he went on to another assignment, his replacement reported a rash of car burglaries and petty thefts from rooms. A second guard was added to the site--and the number of broken windows and stolen radios doubled.
“So I stayed one night myself and watched, and these guards would wait until the other one was out of sight, then both were breaking into the cars,” Hernandez said. “I couldn’t believe it. But I shouldn’t have been surprised.”
The reliability of guards is a topic that may be more crucial in years to come. The future will include a growing dependence on these “private police” to handle the tasks that now belong to law enforcement, according to studies and industry observers.
Cities such as San Francisco and Newark, N.J., already have private guards teamed up with police to supplement patrols in some commercial areas and public housing.
But the concept of guards working with law enforcement is not a popular one among many cops, and Foote, the Santa Ana lieutenant, acknowledges that the industry will have to better police itself before it can be trusted to police the public.
“The industry runs the gamut, from the beer-bellied 75-year-old asleep in a truck while someone breaks into a building in front of him, to people who are professional who I wouldn’t mind backing me up on a car stop,” Foote said. “You just don’t know which you’re going to get sometimes.”
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
On Guards
Private security has been a growth industry in Southern California as well as statewide. Orange County’s increase in number of guards, 31%, has outpaced Los Angeles County (23%) and California (19%) since 1993:
*--*
Year Orange County Los Angeles County Statewide 1993 8,798 51,319 133,624 1994 8,854 52,433 133,632 1995 9,564 55,769 140,887 1996 10,906 59,567 155,848 1997 11,539 60,855 164,461
*--*
****
License Denied
Security guard license denials have decreased by a third since 1994. The denials include rejections, usually following a background check, revocations and suspensions. Denials statewide:
1993: 375*
1994: 2,919
1995: 2,286
1996: 2,029
1997: 1,934
* Enforcement activity decreased due to reduced funding
****
Watching the Watchmen
State officials and local police say there are several simple ways for consumers to screen prospective security guards and security guard companies:
* Ask for state registration numbers. All contract guards must carry licenses and, if they are armed, separate permits for guns, batons or Mace spray. Companies also are given state licenses and numbers.
* Ask guard companies for proof of insurance, then check with the insurer to make sure the policy is active.
* Check guard company contracts for specific services to be provided and ask questions about license status of individuals who will perform each service.
* Check guards and companies with the state Department of Consumer Affairs. Call (800) 952-5210 to check record and license status of any guard or company, or to file a complaint. The exact name of the company is needed, and a registration number will speed your request.
Source: State of California Department of Consumer Affairs
Researched by GEOFF BOUCHER / Los Angeles Times
