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Albemarle County VA Nov 28 2012 Private security did its job over the weekend in escorting aman off
Fashion Squaremall property where he grabbed a 2-year-old girl before her father wrestled heraway, legal experts and industry analysts said Monday.
But that doesn’t explain why authorities weren’t notifieduntil more than five hours later, when the girl’s parents called police. Bythen, the man was long gone.
Now, authorities are urging parents to be on heightenedalert as investigators seek clues with little to go on but a vague descriptionof a light-skinned black man standing 6 feet, 3 inches tall and weighing 220 to235 pounds. He wore glasses and a gray hooded sweatshirt.
"We want everyone to be a little more aware and alittle more cautious and vigilant over their children," said
Albemarle County police spokeswoman CarterJohnson.
Security officers responded to the parents' cries between 2and 2:30 p.m. Saturday near Kay Jewelers, where the man seized the child as shewalked slightly behind her parents. The girl’s father pulled her from thestranger’s grasp. Security officers gained control of the man, then releasedhim, police said.
Authorities learned of the incident when the parents calledat 8 p.m., police said. Neither the private firm tasked with providing securityat the mall nor the mall's management company, Simon Property Group, notifiedpolice, Johnson said.
"Obviously, we would have liked to be contactedimmediately," Johnson said.
Angry customers took to
Fashion Square's Facebook page to protesta two-line release issued Monday by Indiana-based Simon, which bills itself as the largest real estatecompany in the world.
"This incident is now a police matter and, of course,we are fully cooperating with their investigation," said Simon spokesmanLes Morris. "Every piece of information that we have in our possession aswell as witness reports have been turned over to the police for theirfollow-up."
The company did not elaborate.
Security guards observed Sunday at the mall wore uniformsbearing the logo of AlliedBarton Security Services, a Pittsburgh-area privatesecurity giant that employs more than 55,000 people nationwide, according toits website.
"We are currently cooperating with the police duringthe investigation and have no further comment," said AlliedBarton VicePresident Alan Stein.
The primary duty of private security officers responding inan incident like Saturday's is to safeguard the people involved, then toprotect their clients' interests, analysts and legal experts said.
"We have to kind of break out the part we're upsetfrom, that they let the guy go, from the thing that would have actually causedharm to the child, the guy that they removed from the situation," saidCharlottesville-Albemarle Bar Association President J. Lloyd Snook III."It's a question of moral responsibility versus legal liability."
As unarmed officers, the guards at Fashion Square lack thelimited powers of arrest that armed security officers possess, said NeadieMoore, licensing manager at the Department of Criminal Justice Services, thestate agency charged with regulating private sector security workers,
State code requires unarmed guards to complete 18 hours oftraining and undergo a criminal background check before they are certified.Armed guards undergo 40 to 42 hours of training.
Shoppers should have a reasonable expectation of safetywhile they are on mall property — that is why the guards are there, Snook said.
But conflict between company and client policies can beburdensome to contracted security officers facing snap decisions, said RickMcCann, a 38-year law enforcement veteran and founder of Private OfficerInternational, an industry association.
"The directions [officers] get can be conflicting, andthat's why it’s so important for the security company and the other company tobe prudent in their requirements of the officer," McCann said.
An untrained or undertrained guard could be cowed by thevery real danger and responsibilities they face, he said. Many guards also fearliability, he added. For instance, could they be sued if they acted to restrainsomeone without the powers and authority accorded to an armed guard?
"As a guard, you hear a lot about these [lawsuits] andthe word gets around," McCann said. "Still, I am a little bit shockedto hear that [the security officers] let the person go."
The characteristics of the incident — occurring in themiddle of the day in a public place during one of the busiest shopping days ofthe year — suggest the man might have done something like this before and mighttry again, said Dr. Jeffrey Fracher, a forensic psychologist practicing in
Albemarle.
"The fact that they were thwarted means they are goingto be unsatisfied,” Fracher said. “These are the situations that keep me up atnight."
No security cameras captured footage of the incident,Johnson said. Detectives are combing through in-store surveillance footage tosee whether the man had been following the family.
So far, Johnson said, police have no leads.
Source:dailyprogress.com
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