Beating Raises Questions About Private Security

(Feb. 11) -- "Observe and report" are the basic duties of many private security officers the world over. But in Seattle, that job description is being called into question because of a video showing 3 unarmed guards observing a 15-year-old girl getting beaten and robbed by a gang of her peers in a transit station.

The incident, which occurred Jan. 28 in Seattle's Westlake Station tunnel platform, has provoked outrage from the public and sent local transportation authorities scrambling to review their security procedures.

"We are very disappointed in what people see in that video," said Kevin Desmond, general manager of King County Metro Transit, according to the Associated Press. "It was absolutely unacceptable."

Although the guards involved did call police, surveillance footage clearly shows the victim standing just inches away from them when she is attacked by another young woman, knocked on the ground and kicked repeatedly in the head. Meanwhile, a young man makes off with her purse. The victim reported $711 of personal items were stolen, including her iPod and cell phone.

"I went to the security and told them that these kids were trying to jump me," the victim said in her statement to police, which the Seattle Times posted online. "I know that I am about to get jumped and I am hanging around the guards to try and get protection. ... I thought the security guards would defend me." The victim's name is deliberately being withheld by law enforcement and the press because she is a minor.

Seattle police have come to the defense of the guards, saying they were simply obeying protocol.

"If you're a bank teller and you do something other than give them the money, you're going to get fired," one officer told The Associated Press. "We don't expect civilians to take police action. In this case, it was a violent fight, and they were outnumbered by this pack of people 3-to-1."

That argument hasn't convinced many observers, however. "Really? You've got three male security guards and there's a young girl getting kicked in the head, lying on the ground, motionless? And they couldn't do anything? Doesn't seem like security," one eyewitness volunteered to Seattle TV news channel KING 5. The news channel's Web site has also been flooded with angry comments from Internet users chastising the guards for their inaction.

Police officers arrived minutes after the attack, but the suspects fled. Four have since been apprehended and are facing charges of first-degree robbery. One of the suspects' mothers told the Seattle Times that the victim is not without her share of the blame.

"I'm not trying to say what anybody did was right. They were all wrong. My son was wrong to even be there," the woman told the Times. "But these two girls used to be good friends until they started dating each other's boyfriends, cheating, saying ugly things about each other on MySpace and stirring things up."

Meanwhile, The Times also reports that transportation authorities are discussing contract changes with Olympic, the security company that employs the guards, that would allow for direct intervention in future incidents of violence. According to the Times: "The current contract language doesn't expressly forbid Olympic guards from physically stopping an attack, but officials say Olympic's personnel are trained not to intervene."

A labor union representing some of the guards seconds this notion, saying that Olympic has not adequately trained or equipped its personnel to respond to such confrontations. Some of the unarmed guards have reportedly requested to be allowed to carry pepper spray.

"These officers have been fighting for months to improve policy and practices that affect the safety of the nearly 119 million riders who take transit annually," a statement from the Service Employees International Union Local 6 reads, as reprinted by a local Fox affiliate. "Officers have spoken out; it's time for Olympic Security Services and the King County Department of Transportation to listen."