This week has been an experience. So as you know, I started the new job this week. Doing security for an apartment complex, or in this case a condo complex, is quite a bit different than working for a large aero-space company. It's defiantly much more active, which is why a couple of former co-workers said I was crazy for making the change. Here is the thing though, I got my "G" license to use it and make more money as a result of it, and the more money part is a much needed part of it. I could have sat back and more than likely eventually became the supervisor of one or maybe even both of the sites I was working at, but I would have still been making less there as a supervisor as I am currently as a security officer.
I've been getting the lay of the land this week and will start enforcing rules a little more as the next couple of weeks come along. Really there isn't much that I've seen that I need to enforce. I was told that the weekends would be the most active of the days and from a sense that was true, but not quite the weekend day that I had expected. I was thinking Friday and Saturday nights would be the most active, it turned out that last night, Sunday was a bit wild. I should give a little background for the property. Once upon a time my brother lived there briefly and I would go on the weekends and swim in one of the pools, so I know the property pretty well. maybe 10 years after that time, it became a pretty bad area. The owners at that time let it fall into disrepair and allowed a lot of bad elements in. It became a sort of blight in the area; murders, drug dealing, rapes, burglary. The current owners cleaned it up, put a little money into it and are continuing to weed out the bad seeds. The history that it had, still reigns over it and there are some things that will continue to improve. One of those things was why I am there now as opposed to the former security officer. He and a police officer ended up shooting a tenant. I do not no the final results, but from what I've heard from tenants, I don't think they killed the person. Reason I believe that is, that I was told that one of the stray cats in the area had the tip of it's tail shot off. Bad aim means that suspect more than likely lived. This was an isolated incident when it comes to something that extreme and there were other incidents with the SO that made them want to move him to another site. All of this is why they wanted me kitted out to look like I'm going on a tactical raid. It was even pointed out to me by a few of the tenants when they saw me.
I've done things quite a bit different than the last SO and I'm getting a lot of feedback from the tenants on how they like what I'm doing. I walk a lot. I can tell you that in the last week I've averaged 25,000 steps each day. That is about 7 miles each day. My goal is to be an active presence in the community and by doing that becoming and active deterrent to anything going on. I'm being told that it is working, but I can't trust that word on only 1 week of work. Time will tell if I'm truly doing the right thing.
Back to Sunday night now. There were only 2 big events but they were quite the doozies. The first was a commotion over a handicap parking spot. One tenant accused the other of falsifying their temporary handicap tag, and then proceeded to park illegally next to the handicap space pinning the car in without access to the driver side door. I attempted to get the one tenant to move their car and they yelled and argued and then we went to the other tenant. They asked If I wanted to see all their documents and I did, because if I didn't verify than I wouldn't be doing my job. I checked all their documents and verified that their tag was authentic and that they were rightfully parked in the space. The other tenant begrudgingly accepted the result and moved their car with a lot of shall we say "fanfare". The tenant that was rightfully parked called the police which I told her she should do, just so that we could have an official response.They showed up just as the other tenant was angrily walking back to their unit. The police talked with us and I explained the situation in detail, they agreed with us and then had a quick word with the other tenant. Situation was almost calmly resolved. I did have to get in between them at one point as one tenant lunged at the other one. I do think it was more of a show rather than a real attempt to attack. One of those "you better hold me back" moments, which I did. I told both of the tenants at separate times that I was going to make sure I patrolled the area a bit more often than usual just to keep the peace and everyone calmed down. The overall problem is that there are 3 handicap people in that one building and only 1 space. That breaks it down to a first come first serve situation, and the angry tenant had free range over that spot for a long time and now they have to sort of fight for it, and they are unhappy. I told them that I understood their anger and frustration, but it is an unfortunate event and they will have to try to get to the spot earlier than they have been in order to have it. I wrote my report and mentioned the lack of needed handicap spaces, but the management is within their rights with having the required amount of handicap spaces on the property.
Ok, second incident of the night. As I was walking past one of the buildings a tenant I had met earlier in the week came out and caught my attention. They told me that there was a squatter hanging out in one of the units on another building and that I should check it out. I walked around and attempted to knock on the door and even tried the door, but there was no answer and the door was secure. I then noticed that the blinds were moving as if from a fan, so it showed signs of someone being in there. I contacted my chief to ask for his advice on how to approach further and he told me to put it in my report and get with building management the next day. I did that and then did a little more investigating and checked the back of the window to see if I could see lights in that unit, I didn't see any, but I did find a missing AC unit in a different unit which would allow access into it. I also found a footprint underneath that hole, so I added it to my list of potential squatter sites. Since I wasn't told about that unit I couldn't check it as I did the other one. I'm security and not police so I just can't try to gain access to a unit without a strong reasons, and speculation isn't strong enough. I can only observe and report at that point, which is what I did.
All in all, if that is the worst of the situations I get involved in there, then I'm going to be just fine. I'm sure the future has more in store for me though.
Oh, I can also tell you that it is a very odd thing to have a gun strapped to your hip as you are talking to law enforcement. I don't know if that will every seem normal to me. I guess that is all me sense of people needing to be trained and licensed to own a firearm. It always stuns people when I tell them I'm not a 2nd amendment guy. I truly believe there needs to be restrictions on who can own and how you get a gun.
Ok, it's time for Favorite Song of the Week. I've been going back and listening to my current favorite band and just have bee overly drawn to this song off their last album. It is of course Twenty One Pilots, and this song is such a groove. I'm just going to get on with it and present to you Twenty One Pilots with their song, Bounce Man".
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