So far, this year, nineteen security officers have been confirmed dead from on the job deaths though Private Officer International estimates that the true death toll is at least ten to fifteen percent higher due to unreported, underreported, misclassification of job titles or our office failed to recover the data from our sources.
Of those killed this year, eighty seven percent, all but four were victims of gunshots and stabbings. These are similar to the percentages that we have been seeing for the past eight years.
The other noticeable data from the past eight years is the number of armed confrontations which frequently involves an unarmed security officer and an armed assailant.
Normally, the confrontations start out as an infraction of property rules or misdemeanor criminal violations such as theft, trespassing, intoxication or disorderly conduct.
When the lone, unarmed security officer attempts to address these violations, remove the person from the premises or challenge the offender, overwhelmingly, the security officer is attacked, assaulted and more than one hundred times a year, killed, right there and right then.
Data from numerous governmental resources has also shown that workplace violence involving security officers, nightclub bouncers, retail security and school/campus security officers has continued to increase at an alarming rate.
In 2017, there were more than 60,000 occurrences.
Private Officer International has had meetings with the Department of Justice, OSHA and numerous state agencies and legislators during the past five years to brainstorm about solutions, possible changes in laws and increases in training and sadly, today, security officer deaths and assaults continue to climb.
What seems like simple solutions, are costly to the employer and ultimately frequently disregarded because of those costs.
Having sole security officers working unarmed and without two-way emergency communication, or lack of immediate back-up assistance continues to acerbate this violence against security personnel.
We need to find solutions. As a multi-billion-dollar industry, surely, we can find answers that both protect employees and clients while making our community safer.