www.mysanantonio.com/business/stories/MYSA120707.01C.Ma -
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Published on: 12/6/2007
Last Visited: 12/7/2007
Shopping venues are a uniquely vulnerable environment, said Walter Roberts, executive vice president of the ASSIST, or the Associated Security Services & Investigators of the State of Texas.Roberts owns a security company in Dallas that provides unarmed and armed security officers.
Malls and shopping centers have many unrestricted entry points, and they attract crowds of all ethnicities and social strata.In addition, most malls employ their own unarmed security officers, Roberts said.
That's where Texas has a slight advantage over most other states, he added.In 2005, the Legislature passed a law requiring all security personnel to be tested and licensed by the state.Most states only license armed private security.
Still, there is little demand for armed officers in the retail industry, Roberts said.
"If the store is in a high-crime area, if they've had an incident, they may hire an armed officer," he said."A lot of times it is after a bad experience; they had an unarmed guy that couldn't handle a violent situation."
Response to crime in a shopping venue also often suffers from a breakdown in communication because different retailers have different security precautions in place.Individual stores with high-end merchandise or theft problems may hire their own security, but stores with no officers are one set of eyes and ears removed from the shopping center's overall security apparatus, which is monitoring public areas of the mall.
"The Omaha incident happened inside a store," Roberts said.
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