Chicago IL August 3 2019

Security guards with dogs are no longer patrolling CTA platforms amid questions about whether the guards, employed by a private contractor of the transit agency, had been property trained to handle the animals.

Instead, two-person security teams are being used, CTA spokesman Brian Steele said Thursday. The muzzled dogs for years had been deployed with one guard in an effort to deter crime and maintain order.

He said the CTA decided that two-person teams were “better equipped to address a variety of situations” and also cited a recent incident in which a dog had hampered the ability of a security guard to protect himself from an assault. The guards are unarmed.

The CTA pays private security forces to supplement patrols by Chicago police, and the changes

That change prompted an ongoing legal fight in which the previous firm, Action K-9 Security, questioned AGB’s ability to hire and train enough people and dogs for transit security. The debate over proper training played out in a recent legal filing that questioned the actions of one of the new guards to try to stop a woman from being killed by a Red Line train.

Steele said the agency initially made a change by pairing two guards with one dog starting July 18.

Then, Steele said, the CTA learned on July 19 that the state had sent out letters a week earlier stating that the vast majority of dog handler applications for the new guards were deficient. According to state records, a subcontractor hadn’t properly documented all the extra training needed.

At that point, Steele said, the dogs were pulled, leaving just two-guard patrols.

Steele said AGB will continue to provide guards without dogs under a two-year contract that includes working with a subcontractor, International Scent Solutions, known as ISS. The contract with the CTA is for about $7 million a year, with the option of extending the deal up to two more years.

State and court records show the firms struggled to get many guards properly licensed for working with dogs.

As part of the legal fight over the new contract, the CTA told a judge in May that it expected AGB to be staffed with valid license holders when it took over the contract later that month. That didn’t happen, according to records obtained by the Tribune under the state’s Freedom of Information Act, known as FOIA.

With AGB lacking the proper license to train its guards to patrol with dogs, it turned to ISS. State records show dog handler applications were submitted under ISS for dozens of guards. But court records show the state sent letters July 12 noting application deficiencies for 57.

State records show that fewer than a dozen other guards affiliated with ISS hold a valid canine handler license, which is required to patrol with dogs.

According to court records, the letters from the state prompted a July 22 email from the account of ISS head David Reese to AGB in which AGB was told to “hand deliver” the deficiency letters to the CTA “to slow the FOIA process,” adding that “we don’t need them getting this info until after we get the guys back in the street.”

AGB declined to comment to the Tribune, and Reese did not respond to emails. The CTA said it couldn’t explain what the email meant.

The Tribune, for nearly four weeks, has asked the CTA to provide staffing records related to AGB and its predecessor. The CTA has not complied.

In the meantime, the legal fight initiated by Action K-9 over the contract has continued. A judge refused Action K-9′s request to stop the switch-over in May, but the case remains pending as Action K-9 continues to argue that the CTA failed to ensure the new firms met the bid specifications to do the job.

In a legal filing this week, as it questioned the competency of AGB’s guards, Action K-9 pointed to the June death of a woman run over by a Red Line train after she climbed down onto the tracks to retrieve a dropped cellphone.

A video posted on social media shows that, in the six seconds it took the woman to climb down to the tracks, a security officer with a dog emerged from behind another part of the platform, then slowly began to walk toward the woman and — according to the CTA — spoke to her. The woman headed in the direction of the train, moving toward a point where the platform ends, when she was struck.

In a filing this week, Action K-9 alleged that the guard “exhibited lack of awareness, lack of training, and indifference in failing to take action” by “slowly walking on the platform” instead of signaling for the train to make an emergency stop, trying to get the tracks’ power shut off or telling the woman to move under the platform to get off the tracks.

The CTA fired the train’s driver for not paying attention but has said the guard followed protocol. Steele said the guard told the CTA he didn’t see or hear the approaching train at the noisy 69th Street station in the 14 seconds between seeing the woman and her being hit by the train.

The spokesman on Thursday pointed to a different incident for helping spur the CTA to change how it deployed private security. He said that on July 17, an AGB guard was assaulted by a CTA train passenger during an altercation.

“Because the guard had to maintain control of the dog, he was unable to protect himself and properly address the situation,” Steele said in an email.

“While a canine unit can have benefits in improving security, there are some limitations. For example, a canine handler must maintain control of the dog at all times. Additionally, the use of dogs is weather-dependent,” the spokesman wrote, adding that dogs cannot be deployed in extreme heat or cold.

He said the decision also stemmed from a move by a new head of security to take a “holistic look at what we do, how we do it, and if there are ways to do it better.”

Steele said the hours of deployment for AGB guards would not change. Costs for salaries could rise as a result of two-guard patrols, he said, but he didn’t provide an estimate.

In an interview with the Tribune, Action K-9′s lawyer questioned the effectiveness of two-person patrols versus guards with dogs.

“The two-man teams are less efficient. There is less of a deterrent effect. And there’s less training required,” said W. Matthew Bryant, who represents Action K-9.

Steele said private security contracts are intended only as a supplement to the Chicago Police Department, which handles law enforcement services on the CTA. He noted that the CPD had added more than 40 extra officers to patrol the system during the summer.

Chicago Tribune

Share this post: on Twitter on Facebook