Posted on 01/29/2010 12:24:21 PM PST by SilvieWaldorfMD
VANCOUVER – Thousands of police will keep watch over the Vancouver Winter Olympics but the first line of defence against potential threats at the events themselves will be private security screeners, many with no previous experience.
Spectators heading into venues will go through airport-style screening – walking through the familiar metal detectors, perhaps followed by a once-over with a scanning wand while their bags go through an X-ray machine.
On the other end of those security devices – in what is likely the biggest security operation in Canadian history outside of wartime – will be 5,000 employees of Contemporary Security International, a consortium of private security firms set up just for the Games.
Depending on their role, those Olympic security screeners will get between 20 and 56 hours of training specific to their jobs.
"This is a model that works well in the security industry and also mirrors what VANOC (the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee) does with a lot of its staff," says Todd Severson, project director for Contemporary.
Contemporary only began recruiting last fall but Severson says it's managed to meet its hiring goals from among 14,000 online applications. About 70 per cent of recruits were from the Vancouver area.
The private screeners look for everything from items not allowed into the venues to potential threats. Their training follows guidelines set up by the RCMP and the Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit overseeing the Games.
Darcy Kernaghan, CEO of Securigard, a private security firm, questions their skills. Monitoring a metal detector is a fairly easy skill to acquire, he says. "But if it's interpreting X-ray machines, no."
Source:Toronto Star
ML/NJ
Sounds like they’ll be about as good as the schmucks at the airport.
Probably better.
As President Bush once said (and I’m paraphrasing): “Security will be seen and unseen.”
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