Posted on 02/10/2010 4:51:13 PM PST by NormsRevenge
SEATTLE Three unarmed security guards stood by and watched last month as a 15-year-old girl was punched, knocked to the ground, kicked in the head and robbed in a downtown Seattle bus tunnel. The guards' actions during the brutal attack captured on surveillance video have prompted a review of the policy that unarmed, civilian guards call police and not try to stop fights or crimes.
Surveillance video first aired by Seattle's KING-TV this week shows the attack at Westlake Station on Jan. 28. The victim appears several seconds before her attackers and sidles up to the three guards, who are standing together and talking.
When a group of teens and young adults approaches the girl, she appears to seek refuge by moving around to the other side of the guards.
Another 15-year-old girl shoves the victim and begins punching her. The two crash into a wall and then onto the floor. The assailant gets up and kicks and stomps on the girl's head. Others grab her purse, iPod and cell phone.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
The Amish running wild again?
The incident was known as the Tacoma Hilltop Shootout. It occurred in 9/89 and involved a Ft. Lewis Ranger and some of his friends who confronted some local drug slingers. They tried to intimidate the Ranger when he set up a video camera in a window of his house to record drug deals. There was shooting, but no casualties. The Army discharged the Ranger. There are good accounts to be read if you google it.
From the article: “civilian guards provided by Olympic Security Services Inc. of Tukwila, Wash. All three of the guards involved are Olympic employees.
The guards’ duties include helping customers and reporting suspicious objects, disruptive behavior and equipment problems.”
I bring this up because I wouldn’t have expected the ‘guards’ to do anything. I remember seeing ads for these jobs and, as above, they are there mostly to help passengers get on the right bus, as a visual deterrent to yutes, and calling HQ if something goes wrong with the equipment. I lived in Seattle for 5 years and took public transit all the time; I saw these people ignore all kinds of things. There’s really nothing much that they are empowered to do.
I don’t blame an unarmed, untrained person from failing to get involved in an altercation. You don’t know if someone is going to start on you or pull a weapon.
That said, it is too bad, since there was a group of them, they didn’t do something to assist this girl. That would have been the right thing to do, to hell with the job description. Where was their basic human decency?
Maybe protecting the citizenry at transit stations would be a good job for police recruits and not some shlub with no sense of morality or duty.
Olympic Security Services also has a large contract with BNSF Railway.
They routinely harrass phobbyists taking pictures of trains in public areas...threatening them with arrest even while they are on public property.
It is well documented in the railfan community of how poor of training they have.
Offhand, I don’t have the link, but it was on an earlier post about this today. Just horrifying.
Most security companies have a “Observe and Report” mentality as many of the guards do not have Post 832 certification (Acadamy). What this ultimatley means is that they call the police.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Many years ago I worked in hospital security. We were taught to be “the best observers in the world”.
We need an ammendment to the Constitution that allows citizens to carry arms such that thugs and killaz will gain a new respect for their fellow travelers and will think twice before muggin’, beatin’, and robbin’ with impunity.
It’s a true story,and yes many shots were fired.Tacoma News Tribune reran the story about two months back.
>>and the bystanders did nothing either.<<
That wasn’t lost on me.
I suspect that some had the feeling it was like watching a cat fight. I mean REAL cats. That is, neither is right or wrong. It’s just what they do.
Go to youtube and search seattle bus tunnel. That’s how I found it.
Yeah, I read about that a month or so ago. Interestingly, IIRC, nobody was hit. That’s a big bad on the rangers.
It looked a bit like this girl was sort of “one of them” in a sense. I think of this stuff like neighborhood cats. I can walk through my neighborhood with impunity. The cats ignore me unless I try to pet one. But if one person’s cat comes into a part of the neighborhood that is run by another cat, a standoff (or fight) ensues. To these perps, it was like none of the other people existed. That is kind of the gang way, as I see it.
>>...as a visual deterrent to yutes...<<
Well, this video proves to the yutes that hey are NOT a deterrent. At all.
Yup, its that visible presence thingy
I understand, but these are 'people', not cats, and I refuse to live un-armed in a jungle with the presumption that some slug with a security badge can provide a semblence of 'security' when they obviously can't.
Kicking a teenage girl in the head while down on the ground begets one a bullet- my rules. Don't like my rules, don't kick a girl in the head where I can see it. Take your chances.
In Seattle we called him "Girley-cowski". Several years ago when those riots were going on, a radio station announced that none of the cops were allowed to take time off to eat, and they were all hungry. Listeners called pizza places and had dozens of pizzas delivered, and Girleycowski intercepted them and had them delivered to the rioters.
I agree. Please see my post 23. If I had been there, I would have taken action. I probably would have pushed one of the security guys right into them for starters.
Then again, see my post 28.
My personal feeling is that many of these people are like animals and need to be treated that way.
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