I am a licensed security officer in Colorado. I have worked both armed and unarmed positions on the city contract. I do not have police authority; I do not have and legal authority other than citizen’s arrest to take people into custody. My job consists of access control to non public city sites, physical security (I.E checking to make sure the doors are all locked), and dealing with trespassers or intruders.
In the five years I have worked this contract I have used pepper spray once and never drew a firearm. One of our guys received a minor stab wound a few years back and no one on the contract has been involved in a shooting incident ever. I performed first aid on a guy that got beat up and thrown from a car and one of our guys was unfortunate enough to find a city worker that had hung himself on one of our sites.
Long story short I’m not a cop, some of the things that I do are kinda like what a cop does but a bar bouncer probably gets in more fights in a weekend then I will in my entire career.
I will never have to get in the middle of a domestic, I will never question a “suspect” nor will I ever have to arrest someone who doesn’t want to be arrested. I’m not even required to detain people by force. I can’t even
attempt to detain people unless I specifically have witnessed a crime where a police officer can detain on the
report of a crime
I don’t mind my job, It’s pretty low stress , I get paid well in comparison to other security guards and I have job security.
Occasionally however, I run into security guards who have what I call “Mall Ninja Syndrome”. They fall under the delusion that because our uniforms have badges on them we are somehow adjunct police officers and we aren’t.
I used to work with a guy that would put on his security uniform on July Fourth and drive around his neighborhood checking to see who was lighting off fireworks. He stated to me that he told people he was cop and that they’d better stop with the fireworks.
I find it almost offensive when I run into a security officer that pretends he’s a police officer as I do when I run into someone who I know has never spent a day in the Army trying to tell me what Omaha Beach was like.