The recruiting, quality and training of guards in malls has come under scrutiny after it was alleged that security personnel fled at the first hint of danger in this week's deadly attack that left five innocent people dead at Trolley Square Mall in Salt Lake City.
Sulejmen Talovic, 18, is said to have entered the mall on Monday with a .38 caliber pistol and a shotgun and began randomly firing. Before he was shot and killed by police, Mr. Talovic had murdered five and wounded four during his rampage.
According to numerous reports, an off-duty police officer, Kenneth Hammon, prevented further bloodshed by exchanging fire with the suspect until a SWAT squad moved in and killed Mr. Talovic.
The event, as a Retail Traffic website article points out, has raised concerns about the performance of the security detail at the Trolley Square Mall. It has also raised the bigger question about security in retail facilities across the country.
A witness to the attack, told KSL TV, "I heard the gun shot, and then I saw the security guards run off, and then I heard a couple more shots."
Mall security by all accounts seems to have played no role in stopping the shooter. The mall has not commented on the number of guards on duty at the time of the attack.
"Some shopping centers will just hire two guard service people to patrol the property and don't really give them any direction; they just tell them to wander around the area,” said Chris McGoey, founder of McGoey Security Consulting.
"We would all like to have the best qualified people for the job, but the pay scale that exists does not allow us to hire the best people and there is a limited group of [candidates] who can do this job,” said Jonathan Lusher principal consultant and executive vice president with the security firm IPC International Corp.
There has been concern for a number of years about the vulnerability of so-called soft targets such as malls and retail stores. As the Retail Traffic article points out, the tragic event of this week is not the only case of malls being targeted for violent acts in the last year as three facilities in Florida and Illinois were targeted in December.
Discussion Questions: Does the system for hiring and training security guards at malls need to change? What is required to professionalize security in soft target retail facilities?