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Tuesday, December 17, 2013


Home Base Iowa Idea Lures Conley Group, Wells Fargo

Dec. 16, 2013 9:38 PM



President Tom Conley Standing By One Of Conley Security's Emergency Vehicles

A security firm and the Des Moines area’s largest private employer are the first companies to consider applying for Home Base Iowa Businesses designations, labeling them as employers with open positions for military veterans.

The Conley Group, an Urbandale security services provider, is pursuing the designation, and Wells Fargo is weighing such a move, said Jimmy Centers, a spokesman for the governor’s office.

The designation is part of Gov. Terry Branstad’s initiative to attract military veterans to Iowa and match them with jobs in the state.

To be designated as a Home Base Iowa Business, companies have to meet the following criteria:

• Pledge to hire a specific number of veterans by Dec. 31, 2018.

• Post their open job positions on the Home Base Iowa website.

• Become members of the Skilled Iowa program.

Tom Conley, president and CEO of the Conley Group, said his company has pledged to hire 25 veterans by the deadline, but he called that a “conservative estimate.” Conley said his company has 48 employees, about half of whom have prior military service.

Conley, who is also a commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve, said the designation would be a natural fit for the firm.

“Since we’re a veteran-owned, veteran-led Iowa business, as well as having a veteran preference, it just seemed like a perfect fit for us,” Conley said.

Veterans, Conley said, are often overlooked by employers because they do not possess the right technical skills. What they do offer, he said, are life skills, which can be more valuable to a company.

“The biggest skill set is what they’ve been through. Whether it’s combat or not combat, they’ve been through the basic training experience,” Conley said “They’ve gotten rid of their childhood fears and shown that they can operate under pressure.”

San Francisco-based Wells Fargo is also looking into the designation but has yet to officially apply, spokeswoman Angie Kaipust said.

“Hiring and retaining veterans is a major focus for us, which is why we think it’s important to look into this program,” she said.

Branstad launched the initiative last month and said Iowa could potentially attract “tens of thousands” of military members who will be leaving service during the next few years.

Source: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20131217/BUSINESS/312170069/0/NEWS/?odyssey=nav%7Chead&nclick_check=1
Colorado Shooting Puzzles Officials

Posted by on Monday, 16 December 2013
 
A 17-year-old high school student remained in critical but stable condition Sunday as Colorado officials tried to understand why a fellow student shot her and tried to shoot his debate coach before committing suicide last week.


Two days after the shooting at Arapahoe High School in Centennial, the wounded student, Claire Davis, was in a coma at Littleton Adventist Hospital, her family said in a statement released through the hospital's Facebook page Sunday evening.

"The first responders got Claire to the right place, at the right time, and the doctors and hospital staff are doing a wonderful job taking care of her," said the statement, which requested privacy. "We appreciate your continued good thoughts and prayers, and will provide updates as her condition improves."

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, in an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday, said that a shotgun blast hit Claire in the face and that he had visited her and her family in the hospital.

"Her parents are two of the most wonderful people you could ever hope to meet," Hickenlooper said. "You know, they adopted her. I mean, they are beside themselves, and, really, we all have to keep Claire in our thoughts and our prayers. Her parents ... I can't imagine what they're going through. It's unspeakable."

Claire may not have been a premeditated target, Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson said at a Saturday news conference. She was in "the wrong place at the wrong time" when Karl Halverson Pierson, 18, stalked through the high school with a shotgun Friday, he said.

The pair didn't appear to interact before Pierson shot her, Robinson said. Authorities said Pierson unsuccessfully searched the school for a librarian who had been his debate coach before he set off a Molotov cocktail that ignited bookshelves in the library and then killed himself.

Robinson told reporters Sunday that investigators had wrapped up their investigation at the high school and would be releasing the facility back to the school district soon.

Hickenlooper, a Democrat who pushed successfully for universal background checks for in-state gun purchases and for limited magazine sizes, seemed almost at a loss in his "Face the Nation" interview.

Because Pierson was 18, he was able to buy his shotgun legally; a sheriff's deputy was in the building when the shooting began; and Pierson didn't exactly stand out among other students as a possible gunman, Hickenlooper said.

"He didn't seem to have a mental illness. He had a lot of friends. He was outspoken. There have been a couple stories that he was bullied, and that's a recurring theme we see sometimes with these shootings. But, again, there's no rhyme or reason," Hickenlooper said.

He added: "We've invested over $20 million the last legislative session in mental illness. So we've got, you know, 24/7 hot lines. We've got mobile crisis centers. We've got 24/7 drop-in centers, really trying to — to intercept people with mental illness before they can cause damage to themselves or to others. And — and yet somehow this kid didn't exhibit any of those symptoms."

A student who was on the debate team with Pierson, however, said that his friends were concerned about Pierson's behavior.

Larson Ross, 18, a debate team captain, said Pierson had become angrier since his argument with the debate coach in September.

"It seemed like he was attacking people to try and elicit a response, and in doing so he would put himself above that person on a mental level," Ross said. "It started making it tough for a lot of people to be his friend."

Changes in Pierson were so apparent, Ross said, that his friends were talking about whether they needed to tell someone that he might be "going off the edge."

One hour after that discussion, Pierson burst into the school with a shotgun.

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Conley Group Security Officers Train at the Des Moines Regional Police Academy

Conley Group Security Officers completed the law enforcement level Oleoresin Capsicum (OC Pepper Mace) Certification Course at the Des Moines Regional Police Academy. 
 
A Security Officer from The Conley Group's Security Forces is "Exposed" to
Pepper Mace by Senior Des Moines Police Officer Sone Cam
 
The course was instructed by a Des Moines Police Officer who is also a certified police trainer.  Exposure (being sprayed) is a highly painful, but required, part of the law enforcement certification course.  Conley Group Security Officers are trained and certified to law enforcement standards on all non-lethal weapons they carry.

See all photos at: https://www.facebook.com/conleygroup

Saturday, July 27, 2013

With Gun Violence On The Rise, Hospitals Train Their Staff On How To Survive Shootings

By Tara Culp-Ressler on Jul 17, 2013 at 1:10 pm

Over the past several years, mass shootings have intensified instead of abating. Mass shootings are typically defined as random gun-related incidents that take place in a public place. But there’s another space that’s emerging as a battleground for these types of tragedies: hospitals.

According to a Johns Hopkins study published last year, there were 91 shootings inside U.S. hospitals between 2000 and 2011, typically in emergency departments. Another 63 shootings took place outside on hospital grounds. In response, hospitals are working to prepare their staff for potential gun violence at the workplace — essentially, training them about how to survive a shooting and how to best disarm a shooter.

“It used to be hospitals were kinds of ‘hands off.’ Those kinds of things didn’t happen,” Caryn Thornburg, an emergency preparedness expert who is currently working with the California Hospital Association to conduct those kind of trainings, said in reference to hospital shootings. But that’s not the case anymore. Thornbug believes the economic downturn, drug and alcohol abuse, and the rise of concealed carry laws have all contributed to a the current environment in which hospitals have become targets.

According to the Johns Hopkins study, the rate of assaults on hospital employees is 8 in 10,000, compared with 2 in 10,000 for other employees in the private sector. And that doesn’t include patients. Just this week, a patient waiting to receive treatment in a Pennsylvania hospital was struck by a stray bullet.

That’s why Thornburg has designed a class specifically geared toward healthcare workers in the Golden State. The California Hospital Association has held about 17 different eight-hour sessions to give staff members — including doctors, nurses, hospital chief executives, and receptionists — an opportunity to receive training in preparation for gun violence.

Cheri Hummel, the vice president of disaster preparedness for the California Hospital Association, points out that most workplace shootings are over by the time law enforcement is even able to get there. That’s where hospital staff come in. “Everyone should know and understand how to handle this kind of an event,” Hummel told the Los Angeles Times, explaining that hospitals have the unique challenge of safeguarding patients who may not be able to be moved. “You can’t just evacuate an entire hospital. Even sheltering in place and putting everyone on lockdown are challenges,” Hummel added.

Hummel estimates that about 600 of California’s hospital employees have attended a training so far, but the demand is growing. Lower-level employees are noticing that hospital CEOs will take eight hours out of their day to focus on gun violence prevention courses, and that sends the signal that it’s an important priority.

Even outside of mass shootings that threaten medical professionals’ lives, hospitals are certainly impacted by the rising tide of gun violence. Hospital staff treats increasing numbers of patients with gunshot wounds, which racks up an estimated $5.6 million in medical bills each year. In some areas that have especially high rates of gun violence, like Chicago, hospitals are desperately seeking more blood donations because their supplies aren’t sufficient to treat everyone who gets shot.

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Tom Conley Comment:

Most hospitals have unarmed security personnel which is grossly inadequate to be able to confront a deadly force threat.  As I point out in the Armed Security section of our website (www.theconleygroup.com), only armed on-site security officers can have a chance to confront and neutralize active shooters, disgruntled employees with a gun, an estranged spouse of an employee who shows up at the workplace with the intent to harm or kill, or armed criminals who come to a customer location and are intent of robbing, injuring or killing people at that location.  It naïve and can prove deadly to believe that law enforcement is physically capable of being on site in time to actually affect the outcome of an active shooter situation or similar incident.  As the old adage that states, “When seconds count the police are only minutes away.”

Monday, July 22, 2013

Man dressed as security guard robs Pasadena Starbucks
 
By Brian Day
brian.day@sgvn.com
@SGVCrime on Twitter
Posted:   07/21/2013 11:45:39 AM PDT
Updated:   07/22/2013 02:14:11 PM PDT


PASADENA -- A man dressed as a security guard robbed a Starbucks coffee shop at gunpoint just prior to opening time early Sunday, police said.

The robber was wearing a blue jacket with a private security patch on it when he knocked on the door of the business at Foothill and Rosemead boulevards about 4:45 a.m., Pasadena police Sgt. Mike Villalobos said.

There were three employees inside, however two were working in the rear of the shop, the sergeant said.

When an employee opened the door to speak with what appeared to be a security guard, the man pulled a black handgun and demanded cash from the register, Villalobos said. The robber fled with an unknown amount of money.

He was described as a black man in his 20s, Villalobos said. A further description of the patch on his jacket was not available.

http://www.sgvtribune.com/news/ci_23702998/man-dressed-security-guard-robs-pasadena-starbucks
_______________________________________________________________ 

Tom Conley Comment:

Anyone who is operating in an official security or law enforcement capacity must have an official form if identification on their person at all times while on duty.  Do not be hesitate asking anyone in uniform to see and I.D. before allowing them access into your business or home.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Students Describe Bloody Scene at Texas College

"I turned around, and there was just blood — just blood dripping down the stairs, all over the floor, all over everyone's towels, on their necks"

By Ramit Plushnick-Masti and Juana Lozano
Associated Press

CYPRESS, Texas — A 20-year-old student who told police he had fantasized for years about stabbing people to death went on a rampage with a knife at a suburban Houston community college, hurting more than a dozen people, authorities said.

The Harris County Sheriff's Office said that about 11:20 a.m. Tuesday, Dylan Quick began a building-to-building rampage with a razor-like knife at the Lone Star Community College System in Cypress. He wounded at least 14 people.

Neighbors said he was a shy young man who would say hello when he took out the trash and helped his parents tend the yard, though he rarely came out alone.

"I can't imagine what would have happened to that young man to make him do something like this. He is very normal," said Magdalena Lopez, 48, who has lived across the street from the Quick family for 15 years.

The Quicks were friendly and fit in well with the other families on the block of brick, ranch-style homes. Most were aware that Quick is deaf. A street sign, "Deaf Child In Area," was posted on the block to warn drivers.

"I can't believe he would do it," Lopez added.

 But hours after the stabbing attack, Quick was charged with three counts of aggravated assault, and the statement from the sheriff's office said pieces of the blade used in the attack were found in at least one victim and at the scene of the attack. A knife handle was found in a backpack Quick was carrying when he was arrested. Authorities were seen leaving Quick's parents' home with two brown paper bags.

No one answered the door or the phone at the red brick home, though two vehicles were parked in the driveway, one of them a Honda Accord with a license plate that read "DYLAN." It was not immediately known if Quick has an attorney.

The attack began before noon on a sunny spring day, interrupting the careless chatter of Diante Cotton and his friends, who were sitting in the cafeteria when a girl clutching her neck walked in, yelling.

"He's stabbing people, he's stabbing people," Cotton said the girl shouted, his first indication that something was amiss on the normally tranquil campus.

Walking outside, Cotton and his friends saw another half-dozen people with injuries to their faces and necks. Some were being loaded into ambulances. The most critically injured were evacuated in medical helicopters.

"I turned around, and there was just blood — just blood dripping down the stairs, all over the floor, all over everyone's towels, on their necks, just a lot of blood," Melody Vinton told KHOU-TV.

The attacker ran past Vinton, she said, as she was leaving her chemistry class. He was stabbing people, she said, one after another, always aiming for the neck or face.

"There's no humanity in that. Just to see another human being do that was more traumatic than anything," Vinton said.

Vinton and other students in the science building rushed to help the victims until emergency crews arrived.

Michelle Alvarez tried to back away when she saw Quick running toward students. She didn't even feel it as he swiped her.

"He came running and swinging at my neck, as I tried to get out of the way," she told the Houston Chronicle.

It remains unclear how long the attack lasted, but Lone Star college officials said they locked down the campus shortly after 11:30 a.m. Students described phones going off informing them of the lockdown. Some stayed in class until they were dismissed. Others went out to the hallways, where they were evacuated to their cars.

Of the 14 people hurt in the attack, five remained in a hospital in good condition Wednesday, including two previously listed as critical, according to Kathryn Klein, a spokeswoman at the Memorial Hermann Texas Trauma Institute.

The sheriff's office said Quick told them he had fantasized about stabbing people to death since elementary school and had planned the attack for some time.

But Michael Lincoln, who lives next door, said Quick had never been aggressive, making the accusations even more shocking.
 
"If he's outside, he speaks to me, `Hey neighbor, how you doing?'" Lincoln said.

Elva Garcia, 46, who lives two houses down from the Quicks, described him as a nice young man who stayed out of trouble and only came outside with his parents. She saw him, she said, just this past weekend, working with his parents in the front yard.
 
"We can't even believe it. What motive would he have?" Garcia said.

The attack came three months after a different Lone Star campus was the site of a shooting in which two people were hurt. The suspected gunman in that incident is charged with aggravated assault.

Saturday, March 23, 2013

The following article was published in the Des Moines Register on March 21, 2013 about a security guard that was employed by Securitas Security Services USA and assigned to work at Principal Financial Group’s corporate offices in Des Moines.  The act by this guard demonstrates with great clarity why organizations should always use highly-trained, professional security officers as opposed to low paid and unqualified traditional guards.
_______________________________________________________________________

 ‘Griswold’ quip results in more than vacation

Reference to a film comedy costs guard his job at Principal.

By Clark Kauffman | ckauffman@dmreg.com

A security guard who worked at Principal Financial Group lost his job last Christmas after joking about the CEO being kidnapped the way Clark Griswold’s boss was abducted in the movie “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.”

Gerald Chlebanowski, 54, was employed by Security Services USA, which provided contracted services for Principal Financial Group. Chlebanowski worked as a security guard at Principal’s corporate headquarters on High Street in downtown Des Moines.

According to state records, Chlebanowski was working at Principal on Dec. 14 when he made a joking comment to a Principal executive that referred to Principal CEO Larry D. Zimpleman and a scene in the 1989 “Christmas Vaca­tion” movie. The scene involves Frank Shirley, CEO of a fictional food-additive company, who is kidnapped at his home on Christmas Eve after deciding not to award annual bonuses to Griswold and other employees. Shirley is brought to Griswold’s house, bound and gagged, to explain himself. Eventually, a SWAT team shows up, and the CEO decides to reinstate Griswold’s bonus.

At a recent public hearing on his request for jobless benefits, Chlebanowski said he and the Principal executive had been discussing their weekend plans when Chlebanowski told the executive “you could always have your CEO kidnapped and then get your house broken into by a SWAT team.”

According to Doug Stogdill, a manager with the security company, Chlebanowski’s comment quickly went “up the chain of command” at Principal, which then asked the security firm to refrain from assigning Chlebanowski to Principal for any future security work.

“The comment he had made was to a vice president who reports directly to the CEO, and so the humor was lost on that person,” Stogdill testified.

Chlebanowski was given no other assignments and was without work through Christmas. On Dec. 28, he found a job with another company, and then applied for unemployment benefits for the 11days he was without work. As part of that request, he wrote to Iowa Workforce Development and expressed regret that “one word taken out of context can have dramatic results for the negative. I did leave on good terms with my employer and I hope that things go well for them.”

Administrative Law Judge Devon Lewis last month awarded Chlebanowski benefits, ruling that the former security guard had been effectively suspended or discharged after an “isolated incident of poor judgment” that didn’t amount to workplace misconduct.

Principal spokeswoman Susan Houser said the company was unable to comment on matters involving either employees or non-employees of Principal.
 

Wednesday, March 20, 2013


Urban Exploration Helps Terrorism, Counterterrorism Agency Warns

By Spencer Ackerman | 03.19.13
 
Some people are into spelunking through the urban ruins and crevasses of unfamiliar cities. The National Counterterrorism Center has a term for these sorts of people: terrorist dupes.




“Urban Explorers (UE) — hobbyists who seek illicit access to transportation and industrial facilities in urban areas — frequently post photographs, video footage, and diagrams on line [sic] that could be used by terrorists to remotely identify and surveil potential targets,” warns the nation’s premiere all-source center for counterterrorism analysis.
 
You might think that dude climbing across the girders of a suspension bridge late at night intends to get a good view or to write some graffiti. But the National Counterterrorism Center can’t help but notice the pathway he takes exposes “security vulnerabilities” inherent in the urban landscape, like “access to structural components including caissons (the structures that house the anchor points of a bridge suspension system)” — all of which a terrorist would find useful. Spelunking through subway tunnels might alert terrorists to “electrical, ventilation or signal control rooms.” The vantage point of a rooftop provides a glimpse useful to the “disruption of communication systems.”

All of this was part of a one-sheet warning that the National Counterterrorism Center issued in November, unearthed by our friends at Public Intelligence. Named in the document are prominent urban-spelunker websites like Undercity.org and Placehacking.co.uk, which grew out of urban-geography PhD research. Should you observe “suspicious UE activity,” the Center encourages you to report it to “the nearest State and Major Area Fusion Center and to the local FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force.”

A 1993 Wired magazine piece, “Hacking the Material World,” toured the underground warrens beneath Columbia University, MIT and other major urban schools. GeekDad ran a 2008 piece about venturing through an abandoned monorail system connected to the Toronto Zoo. The pieces contain either photography of the landscape or details about hidden urban areas, and are posted online — so by the logic of the National Counterterrorism Center, Wired has played into terrorist hands.

Urban exploration is not typically the reconnaissance mission of al-Qaida. While it’s not crazy to think that terrorists might be interested in studying an urban landscape, the vanishingly few cases of domestic terrorism in the post-9/11 era typically involved shooting up places like Fort Hood or leaving a would-be car bomb in Times Square, rather than recon from the top of a bridge or the depths of a subway tunnel. Such tips aren’t even a part of the DIY terrorism advice column in al-Qaida’s English-language webzine.

Urban explorers probably won’t have to feel singled out for long. Wait until the National Counterterrorism Center learns about the architectural drawings available for viewing in the nearest university library, or the map brochures available to tourists at national landmarks.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013


TSA Agent: Blame our Bosses

Screener says Newark Airport is understaffed and employees are overworked. TSA supervisors are to blame for recent security breaches at Newark Airport exposed by The Post - including a fake bomb that got past screeners, an agent said yesterday.

By C.J. Sullivan and Rich Calder
Source: The New York Post
Created: March 12, 2013

"The problem at Newark is that the supervisors are more concerned with appearances rather than results like stopping illegal weapons from getting on planes," said one agent with the Transportation Security Administration, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"They don't back up the screeners. They would never come out and help when it gets busy. I work hard here, and it's very busy. We aren't lazy; we are understaffed and overworked."

The agent's remarks came a day after a former TSA screener told The Post of Newark's lax security, saying, "It's not a question of if terrorists get through - it's a question of when."

Rep. Peter King (R-LI), chairman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, said that yesterday's Post report revealed "a lot of weaknesses" in TSA security and that "improvements must be made."

"There's no room for errors," King said. "One major mistake, and it's a disaster."

But Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) defended the agency.

"We are safer since 9/11, and I think TSA is part of the reason," he said, even as he called on the agency to reverse its decision to allow fliers to bring pocketknives, baseball bats and other potential weapons on flights.

At Newark Airport yesterday, fliers said reports of lax security there had them leery.

"I see how bad it is here," said John Tensel, 51. "I try my best not to even think about it. It's too scary what can happen."

Della Monterella, 27, of Florida, said, "The TSA agents at Newark do seem bored by their jobs. They act like they don't care."

Additional reporting by Antonio Antenucci

States Tackle School Safety After Sandy Hook Shootings (#2)


BY: Ben Wieder, Stateline | March 5, 2013

In recent weeks, the South Dakota legislature has been rattled over a bill that aims to make schools safer by introducing “school sentinels” — teachers, administrators, security guards or community volunteers — who would carry guns to protect their schools.
 

“If you have not heard about the sentinels bill, it’s probably time to come out of hibernation,” state Senator Craig Tieszen joked last week, according to the Argus Leader.

The bill, which school districts could adopt voluntarily, passed both chambers of the legislature, despite protest from the state’s school board association and most Democrats, and was signed by Gov. Dennis Daugaard on March 8.

South Dakota is among several states considering new school safety laws in the wake of the December shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., that left 20 young students and six adults dead.

A month after the tragedy, President Obama called for a mix of gun-control measures and increased security at schools. His plan would ban military-style assault rifles and strengthen background checks, but also would include more money for guidance counselors and school resource officers, who are usually armed and trained to work at schools. He also supported requiring schools to adopt emergency plans and beefing up mental health services to earlier identify students in need of help.

Different Approaches

States have pursued a variety of proposals. The day before Obama released his plan, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a new law, which toughens gun laws in schools and requires them to submit school safety plans to a new School Safety Improvement Team. The act also bans assault weapons, puts greater restrictions on ammunition, and requires counselors and therapists to report potentially dangerous patients to mental health officials. In February, Arkansas passed legislation requiring the state to determine whether schools are equipped to respond to acts of violence.

Kathy Christie, who heads legislative research at the Education Commission on the States, says a new trend in school security strategy stresses greater emphasis on training teachers to spot mental health problems in students and refer them for help. “They’re looking at what is the first line of defense,” she says.

But the question of beefing up security in schools — particularly allowing teachers and other school staff to be armed — has proved more divisive. Many education leaders criticized the National Rifle Association after it recommended putting an armed guard in every school. After Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell also suggested that the state consider arming teachers, leaders of the country’s two largest teachers unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, jointly condemned the idea.

“Guns have no place in our schools,” Dennis van Roekel of the NEA and Randi Weingarten of the AFT said in a joint statement.

Paying for Security

In just under a third of the nation’s schools, guns do have a place, at least some of the time. According to Department of Education statistics from the 2009-2010 school year, about 28 percent of schools had some armed security staff, with more than 50 percent of middle schools and 60 percent of high schools reporting the presence of armed staff.

Those numbers could increase under the president’s proposal, but it could be expensive. Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers, estimates that each resource officer costs $50,000 to $80,000, depending on location.

In the early part of the last decade, the federal government helped pay for these officers through its Cops in Schools program, which gave police departments up to $41,666 a year to help hire them. Funding for the program dried up in 2005. Some in Congress have called for it to be renewed, while Obama’s plan would give priority to existing Department of Justice grants to police departments hiring school resource officers. Sequestration cuts could affect just how much grant money is available.

To cut costs, some lawmakers are considering retired police officers as potential school security, which Canady says could work if they have the right temperament for a school environment. South Dakota state Representative Scott Craig, who introduced the "school sentinels" bill, says his plan to arm already employed staff members or volunteers is an even more cost-effective approach for districts and localities, including the small and rural, that aren’t wealthy.

“These folks can’t afford it,” he says. “They’ve got one sheriff.”

Craig says law enforcement would approve the sentinels who would receive mandatory training. But while teachers in a few states have flocked to free gun training provided in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting, some question whether arming teachers actually would make schools safer.

Canady says that armed staff could make things more complicated if police officers were called to a shooting at a school. “In Wild West terms, how would we know who are the good guys and who are the bad guys?” he says.

Francisco Negrón, General Counsel for the National School Board Association, says it could also open up schools to liability in the case of an accident. “A teacher has qualified immunity in performing his or her duties,” he says, “but are his or her duties to carry a gun?”

Limits of Success

The South Dakota bill has had more success so far than measures in at least 20 other states that would allow some school employees to be armed, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. A Virginia bill introduced shortly after McDonnell’s suggestion never made it out of committee before the end of session. Similar bills in Tennessee, California and Alaska are also stalled. Some districts have even gone in the opposite direction, with schools in Denver recently reducing the role of police in schools.

Even if states add security and develop better safety measures, Canady says there is always a limit to what they can accomplish. He says the safety protocol followed in Sandy Hook, where many teachers locked their classroom doors and moved students away from them, is in line with the best practices.

“When you have a madman with that kind of weapon, it’s hard to defend unless you’ve got a properly trained and armed professional on the other side,” he says. “You can’t have police officers everywhere.”

Stateline is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news service of the Pew Center on the States that provides daily reporting and analysis on trends in state policy.

Tuesday, March 5, 2013


Busting Underground Shoplifting Rings: Inside Organized Retail Crime Raids

By DAN LIEBERMAN (@danliebs) and LAUREN EFFRON (@LEffron831)
Feb. 26, 2013

We used to call it shoplifting, but these days the foot soldiers of retail crime rings are known as boosters. Police even have an acronym for these operations: ORC, which stands for Organized Retail Crime.

"It's just like a Fortune 500 company," said Sergeant Eric Lee of the Gardena Police Department in Gardena, Calif. "All of this is just organized."

Police say big retail stores, from Walgreens to J.C. Penny, are getting hit by highly sophisticated shoplifting networks that steal and resell everything from underwear to razors to milk. According to the National Retail Federation, theft can amount to annual losses as high as a $37 billion for retail businesses.

"Every store in every city has to go through this," Lee said. "They wait until no one's paying attention and they walk out."

Tide detergent is currently a hot target because it is compact, expensive and easy to sell on the streets for profit, police said. The Street name: "liquid gold."

"Sometimes we get rings that just do alcohol," Lee said. "And then we get some that do just meat and seafood."

Investigators say boosters move the loot for cents on the dollar to fencing operations -- the black market resellers of the stolen goods -- which sell the stolen merchandise in plain sight in stores. Boosters, fencers, Mr. Bigs, all of those involved in these shoplifting operations can potentially make millions a year from boosting and re-selling stolen goods.

And Mike Swett is on the case. A former Riverside County sheriff's deputy in Los Angeles, Swett was badly injured in a car wreck and now works as a full-time private investigator on the ORC beat who has worked with Target, Marshalls, T.J. Maxx. Stores hire him to do his own undercover police work, catching thieves before involving local law enforcement.

"Kind of like working a narcotics case, it's like you've got low-level, mid-level and then top dog," Swett said. "We like to go after the top dog and the only way to get to the top dog is mid-level first."

At his command center -- his apartment -- Swett showed off the boxes upon boxes of tapes and photographs he has collected, the fruits of countless silent stake-out hours.

Swett said he has been casing two joints in L.A. for months, both alleged to be mid-level fencing operations. "Nightline" was invited to ride along with him when he sent undercover agents in for a final reconnaissance mission.

At some stores and shopping malls, clerks do little to stop shoplifters and often let them run, which has contributed to the growing fencing operations.

"[The stores] don't want their employees to get injured," Swett said. "So oftentimes they will call the police, but by the time we get there they are already in their car and they are gone."

This leaves professional investigators like Swett to put the pieces together and bust open the gangs to lead over-stretched police departments to the prey.

When raid day arrived, a motorcade of squad cars departed from the Gardena, Calif., police department and pulled up to one fencing operation. Swett said the merchandise being sold was boosted goods.

"There is Victoria's Secret, expensive Victoria's Secret, the gift sets," he said, pointing down a line of tables. "J.C. Penny, Miramax, its real stuff not counterfeit."

He spotted a bottle of Katy Perry brand perfume, which usually retails for around $90 but one seller had it priced at $59.

"She probably paid $10 for it," Swett said.

Inspectors from various stores swarmed the place and all of the merchandise was photographed. Police handcuffed the accused and it was on to the next target.

In another jurisdiction halfway across the country, investigators in Northern Indiana have a secret warehouse that is packed with millions of dollars worth of stolen merchandise -- one of many across the United States.

Its location is kept secret because busting in would be a booster's dream, a one-stop shop. This is also the headquarters for Walgreen's Organized Retail Crime Division run by director Jerry Biggs. Biggs said more than 40 boosters can feed one fencing operation. One recent ring they busted was making $17 million a year.

"This stuff here," Biggs said, gesturing to the thousands upon thousands of bottles of lotion, baby formula and medical supplies. "Most of it was taken within just weeks. Probably took us about six months to work the case, following them to four different states continuously."

Pins in a map stuck to the wall mark shoplifting hot spots. Flow charts connect members of various gangs.

Biggs' library of surveillance tapes is astounding. One tape showed a man wearing a suit in a Texas Walgreens swiping a tray of diabetic test strips -- a total value of $1,000.

"He takes that to the bathroom and puts it in his pockets," Biggs said.

Two days later, Biggs said that man was stopped by traffic cops with $4,000 worth of medicine in the trunk of his car. He was charged with possession of controlled drugs and stolen property.

Another Biggs video showed two women who seemed to have the keys to display cases in another Walgreens, which they unlocked and emptied, making off with the merchandise. Police are still looking to question them.

"I'm amazed every time," he said. "They can come into the store and in 45 minutes they can walk out with $400 to $2,000 worth of merchandise and nobody knows what happens."

Biggs and his team are the James Bonds of retail crime. They are armed with tracking devices, radios and hidden cameras, including visor cams that Biggs said can monitor what is going on in a 360-degree radius. A booster might think he is out the door and home free, but not always.

"With today's technology, I can have your face pretty much throughout the country in less than 10 minutes," Biggs said.

Back in Los Angeles, the people at the fencing operation were arrested for possession of stolen property. Formal charges still pending their court date.

Another operation completed, but for Swett, the work goes on.

"Could be nothing, could be something, but that's a lot of stuff" he said, as he starts to videotape a suspicious van being loaded in a store parking lot during one of his recent stake-outs.