Mark Vinson, president of the company that provides security in the downtown transit tunnel, sent a letter to city and county officials yesterday defending the company’s interpretation of a King County Metro-approved policy that required security guards to merely “observe and report” suspicious or illegal activity in the tunnel. (Last January, two guards for the company, Olympic Security, were caught on tape standing by while a group of teenagers beat and kicked another teenage girl. After a public outcry over the incident, which became national news, Metro said it would find another company to provide security service).
In the letter, Vinson points to
an e-mail from Metro chastising Olympic Security because a guard had touched a person who was misbehaving on the shoulder to get his attention. The e-mail suggests there was inadequate training on the contours of the guards’ “observe and report” limitations. Following this incident, at the direction of Metro, refresher training was conducted in December based on the attached training outline for standard post orders that was submitted to Metro for review and approval late last year. Item 21 is specific about non-intervention in a fight.
In the email, addressed to Olympic tunnel supervisor Mustafa Darrar, Metro security coordinator Gail Israelson says that two Olympic security officers violated Metro policy requiring officers to “observe and report” incidents by making “physical contact” in one case, and by “interfering with operational issues (again!)” in another. “It would appear to me that [the two security officers] do not fully understand the concept of ‘Observe and Report,’” the email says. In conclusion, Israelton asks about the status of a planned officer training on the “observe and report” policy.
Metro deputy general manager Jim Jacobsen says that neither of the incidents cited in Israelton’s letter were assaults. One, he says, was a skateboarder who complained to Metro after a security guard tried to stop him from rummaging through trash cans in the tunnel by touching him on the shoulder; the other was a bus driver who complained that a guard directed him to back up in the tunnel, in violation of Metro and Olympic policy.
“Following this incident, at the direction of Metro, refresher training was conducted in December based on the attached training outline for standard post orders that was submitted to Metro for review and approval late last year,” Vinson wrote.
That training manual states explicitly that guards should “Observe and Report, don’t involve yourself in any fights, don’t direct the coaches, don’t touch any unattended bags, but do report to your supervisor.” However, Metro’s Jacobsen notes that that document has a date of February 24, 2010—yesterday—and says Metro has no previous record of the document.
Olympic has come under intense fire for the policy, which the two guards cited as the reason they did not intervene in the January altercation.
“Some of this obviously doesn’t quite fit together,” Jacobsen says.
Vinson responded to a list of questions through a spokesman, who only identified Darrar as an Olympic supervisor, and did not ask the remaining questions.
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stupid question time: what is the functional difference between a “Observe and Report” person and a video camera with a recorder?
Policies are fine. Clarify the duties when assigning them and when choosing how new hires qualify to fit the duties. You know, duties.
It's beyond asinine that Metro is going to make people lose their jobs for following Metro's rules. 15 year-olds get beat down on sidewalks all over this city every day, and the government pays no attention. What a reactionary bunch of CYA crap.
The assumption that a warm body will somehow serve as a deterrent by virtue of it's physical presence.
How many of you out there are old to enough to remember the start of outsourcing during the 80's under Raygun the right wing stooge?
Let me give you a quick explanation – you take a bunch of people kind of making a not quite family wage job, and you fire them all. You replace them with “contractors” who work for a different more efficient … ha ha ha … company – and the more efficient company is more efficient at billing the original company a buck or 2 less an hour than the replaced ex-employees, is more efficient at paying people crap, and is REALefficient at skimming a nice pile per hour for upper management.
(See Labor Ready, or KBR hiring serfs in the middle east to support u.s. troops so American managers can skim big hourly wages!)
So, here we are in 2010, 30 years later, and the on-the-cheap security solution is to hire these outsource “security” firms who pay people crap and treat them like crap. After 30 years of republican / democratic sell out bubbles, anyone with a crap job is terrified of losing their crap job.
Those of you who've had jobs may recall that IF you do something you're told NOT to do you get fired, and then you can't collect unemployment, and then you will have a hard time getting a new job cuz you got fired — and those of you who've ever had to live on crap jobs KNOW that when you're living on crap pay you really can't afford getting fired, you can't afford getting screwed out of unemployment for doing the right thing, and you can't afford being unemployable.
THE SYSTEM screwed up, and people making $75k or $100k a year are the ones in charge of designing and maintaining THE SYSTEM, and those in charge of this crap system should have been the ones fired the night this young woman was beaten.
O'brien.
The media have missed the real story here…Metro is trying to pin the blame on Olympic when the truth is the KC Sheriff's union is the one to blame. They insisted on the “no contact” language in the contract because they didn't want Metro to hire cheap rent a cops that could do their job for a fraction of the cost, worried about the long term implications of their jobs being outsourced.
hans – you'd probably be the first to be screaming if some 9 buck an hour seriously under trained hot shot maced your big mouth or bopped you with a nightstick for running your mouth or tasered your obnoxious butt for being a threat.
EVERY profession has its whacks, and whacks should be fired.
However, 1 reason we as a community should pay our law enforcement officers a decent wage is that it COSTS more to fix the problems caused by the ill trained using force inappropriately than it does to have trained professionals – especially when using force on citizens.
Oh yeah, and what is the cost of corruption? Pay cops like crap and treat them crap, and, human nature being the nature of humans, more of them will be looking for shortcuts more often. I guess if you're the type who always has 5 or 10 benjamins in your pocket for a bribe, this COST is better than all of us spending $20 bucks a piece a year to have honest cops?
WHAT kind of math do you eyeman-ites use? $20 a year is worse than $500 or a grand on random bribes?
Obrien.
Which is not entirely without merit. There's something psychologically different about an actual person watching you. In studies in the UK, even a DRAWING of human eyes in a prominent location cut down on crimes to a statistically significant amount when compared to camera surveillance.
It's not asinine, it's completely sensible. Metro wanted an “Observe And Report” policy, and they got it. Then an incident happened which pointed out the need for something more. Olympic's contract is up, and my understanding is that they do not provide the service that Metro is now interested in. They're free to provide whatever services they want, but it IS asinine for people to start bitching when people decide they don't want to buy. Isn't that the entire point of having an open market?
Good, I hope the new guards start harassing these kids, riving them out of the tunnel, Westlake center an the downtown shopping core.
James?