Author: Richard Rodriguez

How security technology empowers onsite personnel

Critical infrastructure sites, cannabis growers, and automotive dealerships have one thing in common: wide, expansive spaces requiring continuous protection. For many of these locations, achieving a high level of security and safety can be challenging.

For example, critical infrastructure and construction sites are often located in remote areas requiring continuous threat protection. These environments may also have trouble deploying adequate video surveillance infrastructures, and therefore, security leaders must look beyond traditional systems to address potential risks. 

The introduction of artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and proactive security solutions can help to support greater automation that helps security leaders strengthen their operations. At the same time, these intelligent solutions — some new to the market but proving themselves in real-world situations each day — support the efforts of security personnel on the ground, allowing them to focus on the important tasks at hand rather than the mundane tasks.

By combining AI advancements with guard personnel, businesses gain an effective force multiplier that works in tandem to ensure the highest levels of security. That’s what we call a win-win. Let’s explore how this combination can drive greater value for your organization. 

New Security Technology

Most security infrastructures typically include video surveillance systems and security guards as integral elements of a successful program. This layered approach has always served as a best practice.

But the pandemic changed the landscape as more businesses looked to add intelligent technologies to protect sites that were now unmanned. Concurrently, contract guard companies found it difficult to hire and retain personnel with the rise in wage rates and health insurance costs.  

But with challenge comes opportunity. Today, as we move away from the significant effects of COVID-19, companies are looking at finding ways to leverage both services more effectively.

With technology explicitly designed to augment the tasks of guards, there is an opportunity to embrace a process that will work to increase the security maturity level of your organization. 

These options are also powerful in helping adopt a more proactive approach to security. We have typically been a reactive industry, but we now have the advancements to change our perspective and operations.

Proactive security technologies empower security personnel to focus on high-impact activities while an AI-based engine “watches” for potential security events. By monitoring, engaging in live intervention, and reporting, this type of offering is proven to be highly effective at stopping criminal activity. 

One such security technology is proactive video monitoring, which can help prevent criminal activity. This technology can help to detect threats and send an alert to an operator off-site. The operator investigates the area of concern and, if necessary, can speak directly with an intruder through a live audio warning. In 98% of cases, a live audio warning (not a pre-recorded message) is enough to stop the individual’s actions.  

Onsite Security Personnel 

There has been much discussion about how these types of solutions can replace the human guard element, but that is simply not the case.

With more than one million security guards employed in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, these individuals are critical to ensuring the safety of various locations and environments. 

Is there an opportunity to do better? Absolutely, and that is where technologies like PVM, robotics, and video analytics come in. Each of these security solutions can augment onsite security staff by increasing their ability to see, hear and “sniff out” danger. 

Hazardous activities — such as responding to a dangerous situation — can now be managed remotely to ensure a higher level of safety for your personnel. This approach can help to reduce liability and ensures the continued safety of guards onsite. 

Additionally, this security technology can help during staffing shortages when it is difficult to find guards to work in remote, desolate, or dangerous locations. Robotic solutions can be sent to monitor remote or high-risk areas, which limits liability.

Technology can also be helpful in supporting less-than-desirable jobs, such as working the graveyard shift, where perimeter rounds are completed several times each hour. The use of these advanced technologies takes away the monotonous, sometimes risky work and leaves more strategic duties to your security guards. 

As you can see, there is a more significant benefit to adopting automation technology, like PVM, which is critical in empowering the human element in security. The simple fact is that security guards can’t be everywhere; they need support, and more than ever, useful intelligence is available to provide this support.

Now is the time to embrace the technologies that can make your onsite personnel more effective, and boost your security strategy. And there is no better time than today. 

Read Post

Security Guard Saves Child Left Inside Hot Car While Parents Drank at Miami Hotel Bar

A security guard has been deemed a hero after he rescued a toddler who was left inside a hot car while his parents reportedly went drinking at a bar inside a Miami hotel last week, police said. “I noticed a guy kept running in and out of our exit,” security guard Howard Bryan, who works at the Clevelander hotel on Miami Beach, told NBC Miami.

“I explained to the guy, like, ‘Look, you’re going to end up getting left out,’ and then he was like, ‘No, I’m just going in and out to check on my baby,’ and I was like, ‘Your baby?'” the security guard recounted. “He said, ‘Yeah, my truck is right here with the windows down with the baby in the back seat,’ and I was like, ‘Bro, you in a club, like, go handle your child,’ and then he was like, ‘No, my wife is in here.'”

Bryan started clocking how long the parents were inside the bar.

After Bryan had a brief encounter with the man who was identified as 33-year-old Osman Karatas, he started timing how long he and his wife were inside the establishment. The security guard said the couple remained inside for more than 45 minutes while their 3-year-old son was left alone in the vehicle.

Bryan quickly alerted two off-duty officers about the situation, prompting them to take action. “If I didn’t say anything and they left, they could have wrecked out with that child in the car because they were drinking and under the influence. The kid could have sat in the car and dehydrated,” Bryan explained.

The car’s temperature registered at 85 degrees.

Bryan realized the temperature was steadily increasing and waited for officers to arrive at the scene to help the young boy. According to a Miami Beach Police report, the temperature registered 85 degrees inside the car when the boy was rescued.

Police said Osman and his wife, Sevda Karatas, 32, initially tried to bring their son into the hotel, but they were turned away because children are not allowed inside, NBC Miami reported.

Full Story Here : https://cafemom.com/news/security-guard-saves-child-left-in-hot-car-while-parents-drank-at-miami-hotel/the-parents-are-originally-from-turkey-and-were-in-miami-on-vacation

Read Post

Houston cop stops mass shooting

  • Sgt Kendrick Simpo was working a second job as a security guard at the Galleria Mall on February 5 when he received a call about a man with a rifle
  • He and another security guard quickly made their way to the department store, but Simpo made sure he didn’t take out his gun and startle children and parents
  • He soon found the suspect – Guido Herrera – just about 10 feet from where a children’s dance competition was taking place and tackled him
  • Simpo said he was able to point the rifle toward the ceiling before backup arrived and restrained Herrera without a single shot being fired
  • About one month later, Herrera was arrested again when he went to the Houston FBI offices and asked to speak to the director with a gun inside his car

A heroic Houston cop who sprang into action earlier this year to stop a man from apparently opening fire at a children’s dance competition has spoken out for the first time.

Sgt. Kendrick Simpo was working a second job as a security guard at the Galleria Mall in Houston’s Uptown District on February 5 when he received a call about a man with a rifle walking near the Macy’s.

He and another security guard quickly made their way to the department store, but as he ran, he said he made sure he would not startle hundreds of children and adults gathered for a dance competition, which was just a few hundred feet from Macy’s.

‘I did know there was a dance competition with little kids going on at the Westin Ballroom, so I didn’t pull my weapon out because I didn’t want to be running towards the Macy’s area – which is past the ballroom area – with the gun,’ Simpo recounted to ABC 13.

Soon, he said, he saw the suspect – who was later identified as Guido Herrera – just about 10 feet from the entrance to the Westin Ballroom’s entrance where the competition was taking place.

‘I quickly bum rushed, tackled him,’ Simpo said. ‘And my first reaction was to make sure that I get a hold of the rifle. No matter what I grabbed, make sure I grabbed that rifle.’

‘I had in my mind [that] I was going to get shot, I just had to bear the pain. I knew it was going to hurt and I was like, “Whatever I do, I cannot let go of this rifle.”‘


 

Full Story: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11022589/Hero-Houston-cop-recounts-took-shooter-childrens-dance-competition.html

Read Post

Nashville police chief thanks hero security guard on Broadway

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — A quick-thinking security guard credited with saving lives at a busy Broadway bar received more recognition for his bravery.

Metro Nashville Police Department Chief John Drake paid a visit to the Lucky Bastard Saloon Friday night to personally thank Mike Kuhn for his actions the previous weekend.

Chief Drake also surprised Kuhn with a challenge coin as a token of his appreciation.

“He thanked me and he was very gracious,” said Kuhn after the two shook hands and hugged.

“His actions saved tourists’ lives, officers’ lives, and I wanted to come down here and tell him thank you,” said Drake.

Police said just before midnight on Friday, July 22, officers were working to arrest Ja’Corious Hudson when Christopher Quintero interfered. Kuhn saw Quintero pull a gun out, and jumped from an open front window of the bar, onto Quintero and knocked the gun from his hands. Officers then rushed to arrest Quintero.

The entire incident was captured on the body camera of one of the responding officers.

“The individual said he was going to pull his gun and see what was up,” said Drake. “That could have been just a tragedy. We could have had a mass shooting or anything.”

“I just saw it happen,” recalled Kuhn. “I wasn’t going to let anything bad happen on the street, especially if I could affect it, so I did what I thought was the right thing to do at that time.”

Kuhn is an Army veteran who said he has only worked at the Lucky Bastard Saloon for a few months. While his military service took him around the world, he has never seen anything like what happened on Friday in the United States.

Quintero is charged with six aggravated assault counts, unlawful gun possession, gun possession while under the influence, public intoxication, and marijuana possession. Hudson was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. He posted a $2,000 bond.

Read Post

Watch the Complete 23ABC Bakersfield Christmas Parade

Westcoast Central Private Security was proud to march in the 2019 23ABC Bakersfield Christmas Parade

 

Full Story Here: https://www.turnto23.com/bakersfield-christmas-parade

Read Post
Call Now Button