Puyallup WA Sept 2 2020

As a U.S. Marine, Christopher Fortner learned how to subdue an enemy in combat. Those skills came in handy in June 2019 after he found himself facing an armed man in a South Hill elementary school under construction.

Fortner was working an overnight shift as an armed security guard at the site, which had been repeatedly burglarized.

The intruder used a window to gain entry and held a box cutter in one hand.

“He started walking towards me with the knife,” Fortner recalled. Fortner drew his pistol.

“I held him at gunpoint until 911 showed up and took him into custody,” he said. “It would have been completely different if he would have approached me, no weapon in hand.”

It could also have been different if Fortner hadn’t been armed.

“I believe Chris could have lost his life (if he) was not a skilled Marine Corps professional,” said his boss, Luke Guthrie. “It’s this high-end skill why these clients are hiring us.”

Guthrie operates Veteran Security Operations, a new Puyallup-based security company that hires only ex-military to protect clients, whether they’re cannabis stores or the Jonas Brothers. The armed guards he employs are a level above rent-a-cops, he said.

Business tripled after gangs took advantage of distracted police to hit high-end stores in Bellevue during July’s civil rights protests in Seattle.

Guthrie, a Tacoma native and 20-year veteran firefighter with Graham Fire and Rescue, was already operating a security company that acted as a go between for private clients and off-duty police officers. But the officers, who don’t work at tax payer expense, weren’t always what clients wanted.

“I kept getting these questions, ‘I can’t afford a police officer at $75 an hour. Do you have something a little bit less? You know, less expensive, but the same skills?’ ” Guthrie said.

Guthrie thought the military might be the answer.

“What if you hired highly skilled military veterans, like combat vets, who are coming back from the war zone,” Guthrie said.

He soon had six men who fit what he was looking for.

“One of them was the son of our mechanic at the fire department (who was) sleeping on the couch,” he said. “He’s a Marine Corps guy that was a police officer and he’s 29.”

Guthrie formed Veteran Security Operations in 2019.

“I paid them twice as much as a normal security guard,” Guthrie said. “And I got them licensed. And we went out and started pitching the clients twice the rate.”

Now, he has 15 employees.

“They’re just bad ass dudes,” he said of the men he hires. “They just were in the war zone six months ago.”

Without exception, the men and one woman have security in their military backgrounds.

“They know security better than police officers, because that’s what they do,” Guthrie said. “Security missions overseas, every single day, all day.”

Guthrie’s employees bring a skill set that’s been conditioned into them.

“It’s situational awareness,” he said. “It’s talking and communicating with people and and keeping everything calm and relaxed. They know what to do when bullets start flying, which is a crazy thought.”

The old school military ways don’t always work for the millennial generation, Guthrie said.

“You have to treat these guys much differently,” he said of his staff. “To yell and scream and be this crazy drill sergeant leader to these guys … they didn’t want that anymore. They wanted to transition into normalcy. But the transition is very difficult for some. They just need a little opportunity.”

Joshua Cantu is one of those. Now an armed officer with Veteran Security Operations, he spent eight years active duty with the 4th battalion, 23rd infantry, stationed in both Germany and at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. He completed one tour of Afghanistan.

Cantu joined the Army out of high school.

“When you do one sole purpose and one job in the military, that’s all you know,” Cantu, 29, said. “So, transitioning from that, you try to find something along the lines of that, whether it be private security, law enforcement, some form of first response type of job.”

Many positions in the military can lead to similar jobs in civilian life. But not all.

“When it comes to combat MOS (military occupational specialty), especially with it with being an infantry man, there’s not a lot of opportunity for that,” Cantu said.

Cantu spent nearly a year at a law enforcement academy, training for a job with the Seattle Police Department, but the academic aspect didn’t work out for him, he said.

Cantu began working for Veteran Security Operations in June. The job fits what he needs.

“I can’t sit still very long,” he said. “I have to keep working. I have to be moving. I have to be communicating with people, interacting. I’m an on-the-go kind of person.”

The job also provides the family that he grew accustomed to in the Army.

“When you work with somebody in the military, you form that camaraderie, that brotherhood,” Cantu said. “It’s hard to explain. You’d have to live that kind of experience to understand it.”

Currently, he’s an armed guard at a Seattle facility that transitions incarcerated people with mental health issues into public life. He provides a security buffer for the general public but also for the tenants of the facility.

“They’ve told me that they appreciate that I’m there and how comfortable they are knowing they have someone with our level of experience and expertise,” Cantu said. “They don’t have to worry about any outside threats. They know that if something were to happen, that we would be there for them.”

No job is too small, Guthrie says, or too dangerous.

Some of those are just patrolling neighborhoods for homeowner associations. Others involve celebrity clients.

Guthrie’s staff wore suits to escort the Jonas Brothers to and from stage and fan events when they performed at the Tacoma Dome in October. They kept a five-foot perimeter around the pop stars whenever they were in public.

“We played soccer in their dressing room for two hours with them while we were there being paid as executive security for their team,” Guthrie said.

After they left Tacoma, Guthrie’s team raced down to Portland to clear the hotel where the pop stars were staying ahead of their concert the next day.

“Our Marine Corps guys know how to clear buildings and go up and down every single hall and make sure there’s no threat, no abnormalities, no sketchy business happening,” he said.

Cannabis stores are regular clients for the company. The stores are not allowed to hire off-duty police officers as security.

“We’ll go find cannabis shops that have been robbed,” Guthrie said of new clients. “And we’ll call them and they say, ‘Can you come tomorrow?’ ”

Guthrie’s officers don’t enter the cannabis stores — weapons are not allowed inside — but patrol outside instead.

Veterans Security Operations’ officers carry pistols and rifles, if needed. Eighty percent of the jobs they take require firearms.

Beyond their extensive military training, the officers are certified at gun ranges and licensed to carry weapons.

Weapons are carried at the client’s request or if the assignment carries a significant amount of risk, Guthrie said.

“We do not use our arms and our weapons for anything other than advanced life safety. That’s it,” he said.

Unlike commissioned officers, Guthrie’s employees don’t pull weapons to detain suspects.

“In fact, it can be considered assault with a deadly weapon to pull a weapon and point it at somebody, even as a security guard,” Guthrie said.

A weapon is pulled only if an officer is moments from using it, as Fortner was at the South Hill school.

“So, when my guys are wearing their weapon, it’s only for one thing,” Guthrie said. “And that’s if somebody was attempting to harm or kill them or somebody around us.”

Fortner, operations manager for the company, spent five years active duty with the U.S. Marine Corps. He left in 2018.

He still works the occasional shift, sometimes at a cannabis store.

“We’re purely there to protect the business, the clientele, the personnel working in the business and make it a safe environment for all involved,” Fortner said.

These are not “observe and report” guards. But, they’re not trigger-happy either.

“You can really be persuasive in how you talk to a potential threat or a potential robber,” Fortner said. “That’s our goal: to be that authority figure and try to deescalate it the best that we possibly can.”

“Obviously, nobody ever wants to use lethal force but our men and women that we’ve hired, they’re well versed on the use of force,” Guthrie said.

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