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WHEN BAD COPS BECOME PRIVATE SECURITY GUARDS  
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Soshana Walter
May 11, 2024
The Marshall Project
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_ There’s growing evidence that former officers with troubling
histories of abuse can easily find second careers in private security.
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Private security guards are present in nearly every facet of public
life, from schools
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public transit agencies, and religious buildings. With the number of
sworn
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officers dwindling nationwide and departments struggling to attract
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recruits, many businesses are turning to security guards
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who outnumber police officers by a significant margin
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But security guards face far less oversight
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police and have lower licensing and training standards
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There’s also growing evidence that failed cops with troubling
histories of abuse — including excessive force — can easily find
second careers
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private security.

About 30% of former police officers working as private security guards
in Florida had been fired or faced complaints for serious “moral
character violations
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they were officers, according to a recent academic study
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The misconduct included felony crimes, excessive force or false
statements in court. Some aspiring officers who couldn't pass a basic
policing test or get a job in law enforcement also turned to private
security, the study found. This echoes reporting I did
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10 years ago, which found that failed officers and prison guards with
histories of abuse often worked in private security.

Allowing these officers to slip into the security industry can have
serious consequences, experts say. As a narcotics officer for the
Detroit Police Department, Matthew Zani
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accused of repeatedly violating the civil rights of people he
arrested. He and seven other officers were charged criminally, but
were later acquitted
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found the witnesses lacked credibility.

After the police department fired him, Zani became an armed guard at
an office and retail complex. There, he beat and detained two Black
visitors in a basement cell, according to a lawsuit filed against him
and the security company he worked for. Zani and the firm are now
facing multiple
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a pattern of racism
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harassment, excessive force
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false arrest by several White guards. Zani, the other guards named in
the lawsuits and the security company have all denied violating
anyone’s rights.

I found numerous examples of cops
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histories of complaints in law enforcement becoming private security
guards and then shooting and killing people. In one case, an apartment
complex guard in Georgia, who had repeatedly faced complaints of
racial profiling, got in a fight with one resident and fatally shot
him. The guard was not charged criminally. In another case, a guard
working for a public transit agency in San Diego shot and killed a man
after he had been detained and laid on his stomach.

Some officers who have been fired after accusations of sexual
misconduct have also landed in private security jobs that put them in
close contact with the public and even children. In 2022, a former
officer who had been fired for sexual misconduct involving the victim
of a crime was discovered
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at a high school in Arizona. And last year, Chicago Public
Schools suspended
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security guards after it was discovered that they were previously
fired from the Chicago Police Department and on the city’s
“Do-Not-Hire List.” One of the former Chicago officers had been
terminated from the department in 2019, following allegations of
sexual misconduct involving a minor. The other officer had faced
allegations of domestic abuse.

Previous reporting has shown that many police departments
are notoriously bad
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disciplining their officers, and many who are fired
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their police certification
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That means they can easily
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from department
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department
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problems arise. These “wandering officers” are more likely than
other cops to get fired again or have moral character
violations, according to an academic study
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In many places, it’s impossible
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the public to look up whether an officer has ever been fired or lost
their certification.

This is also true in the private security profession. In my previous
review of state policies, most states that license security guards did
not seem to care whether an applicant was a former police officer who
had been fired, disciplined or decertified by a commission of peace
officer standards and training (POST).

“A lot of our decision is based on that appearance of the
individual,” the chairman of the Georgia licensing board told me at
the time. “I would say that most of the former police officers —
even if they have POST problems — most of them get licensed.”

There’s a major reason why security companies want former officers:
their law enforcement training and experience are highly valued. In
Florida, officers must complete more than 10 times as much training as
armed security guards and pass multiple tests before they’re allowed
to patrol. As a result, state regulators exempt police
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from the training requirements to become private guards, literally
fast-tracking former cops into the profession.

For all the problems with police discipline, the oversight of armed
guards is even worse. In my previous reporting
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I found that most states did not require companies or guards to report
to a state licensing agency when they shot somebody. Even when guards
reported it, regulators rarely investigated the incident or rescinded
a guard’s license.

The oversight is even more lax in cases that don’t involve guns.
Zani, the former Detroit officer, and several of his fellow guards,
had been the subject of complaints for years. In one instance, another
guard saved video evidence and emailed a complaint
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the state licensing agency, describing compliance violations, racial
profiling and excessive force. But 18 months later a reporter found
the state agency had yet to respond to the guard who made the
complaint.

_Shoshana Walter
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staff writer for The Marshall Project, working on investigations.
Previously, Walter was a senior reporter at Reveal from the Center for
Investigative Reporting, where she examined the armed guard industry
and trafficking on marijuana farms._

_This is The Marshall Project’s Closing Argument newsletter, a
weekly deep dive into a key criminal justice issue. Want this
delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to future newsletters
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* Security Guards
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* Police
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* police misconduct
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