Mall Security Getting Anti-Terror Training

[skooooo]

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=299822

MANCHESTER, Conn. Dec 3, 2004 — In a shopping mall outside Hartford, past the Abercrombie & Fitch and the cell phone kiosks, tucked away by the Barnes & Noble, a conference room full of security guards is learning how to spot suicide bombers.

They are being taught blast patterns and behavior profiles, how a bomb is packaged and how a bomber is recruited.

Suburban shopping mall security guards whose jobs usually consist of watching for shoplifters and shooing away loitering teenagers are receiving the type of training that just a few years ago was reserved for the Israeli police and the U.S. military.

"If they're carrying a bag, look for that white-knuckle grip. … They're carrying that package and they're holding onto it for dear life," Patrick Chagnon, a Connecticut State Police detective and national counterterrorism instructor, tells his class of 10 students as the Shoppes at Buckland Hills mall bustles with holiday shoppers carrying bags and boxes of all sizes.

[xultar]

1. Another reason to shop on the web this year. n/t

[tk2kewl]

2. *Cuban Accent* Why that's so ridiculous!

[Swamp Rat]

3. I guess I'll call my local malls and tell them why I'm never shopping

there again. I predict on-line sales will skyrocket.

[havocmom]

4. havocmom predicts many complaints from nubile teenage girls

of being hauled in and patted down.

All for security personnel being trained on what to look for, but also aware the companies tend to pay poorly and often get what they pay for.

There is a certain part of a population that really, really enjoys a bit of authority, ahem, a bit too much. Some of those types gravitate toward jobs that give them the trappings of authority. Most law enforcement agencies to plenty of psychological screenings and weed many out. Guess where a lot of those go to work?

Now, before you flame me, please be so kind as to recognize I am not saying ALL security company personnel are power mad Nazis. Problem is, some are and they will use position to work out their own little personality quirks. (Don't have to think hard to remember all the reports of females being treated questionably in many US airports.) Most people will do what an authority figure tells them to. For that reason, if I had teenage girls, I don't think they would be allowed to shop without mom along this year.

[BeHereNow]

6. ROLF! See my post below!

You and I had the same thought...
bhn

[BeHereNow]

5. Okay, this is ridiculous...

At least from the perspective of my world.
There are three major malls in my area which
I generally avoid visiting at ALL costs.
However, when the dreadful days come that I do
have to go inside one of them the people I would
LEAST count on to keep me safe would be the
mall security staff.
The majority of them look like they are about
17 years old and not too bright. No offense to
anyone who is a mall security employee, this just
happens to be the case in my area.
The guards working in my area malls appear
to spend the majority of their time standing around
the rails near the escalators gawking at the teen aged
girls hanging out in the mall. I sincerely doubt that
the average testosterone pumped young mall guard
in my area is going to be paying attention to other shoppers
when a group of scantily clad young women is approaching him.
I think we could probably write a sitcom about this.
It is truly that silly, the notion that high school drop outs
working for minimum wage in cheap uniforms are now
keeping the mall safe.
The T.S.A. (thousands standing around) Mall style.
I feel so much safer.
bhn

[havocmom]

7. BeHereNow (with spaces between words ( - : P ) would make a great

sit-com! Oh, and that^ is me with a ball cap on back wards trying to look cool...

Yeah, we might just come up with the REAL American Reality show if we were to work together on some screenplays. Think we see eye to eye on the silliness around us. ;)

Take on:
Homeland Security at the Malls of America
Kool Aide sales and the crumbling democracy, decline of America
Schools and praying they don't come under anymore fundie attacks
against teaching science
Hunters who get upset about a shooting ;)
Falwell speaking about 'Moral...' anything.

Oh, my fellow evilDUer, the material is endless and Jon Stewart just can't do it all... :toast: