Vancouver Canada July 18 2018 The non-uniformed security guards — officially known as “loss prevention officers” — slammed the woman into a wall, causing her to hit her head then brought her to the ground, Ball said.

One of the guards punched the woman in the head as she struggled and kicked against being handcuffed, he said. The woman bit one of the guards leaving visible teeth marks and bruising.

Vancouver police, whom Ball called to the scene, arrested the woman and have since recommended charges of theft under $5,000 and assault. She was released from police custody on a promise to appear, said Sgt. Jason Robillard, a spokesperson for the Vancouver Police Department, adding that he’s not aware of any charges recommended against the security guards.

Robillard noted the woman and the two security guards were checked by an ambulance at the scene, and the security company said the guard who was bitten received further medical attention at the hospital.

Police are not releasing the woman’s name at this time because she has not yet been charged, but they said she is 24 years old and Indigenous. StarMetro was unable to identify or reach the woman.

StarMetro visited the BC Liquor Store on three different occasions over two days last week but was also unable to contact or identify the security guards involved in the incident. A spokesperson for Securiguard, the company they work for, said “it is our company policy that no employee talk to the media so unfortunately you won’t be able to talk directly to our (loss prevention officers) regarding this event.”

Experts who weighed in on the issue of use of force by security guards spoke to a concerning lack of clarity in the rules around use of force — what’s considered reasonable and whether security guards should use force at all.

Doug King, a Victoria-based lawyer who previously worked with Vancouver’s Pivot Legal Society, was clear that from his perspective security guards shouldn’t be using force. King, who is not involved in the case described here, spoke generally about the issue of security guards using force.

 “At the very most a security guard should be there for the purposes of lawfully detaining somebody, but as soon as that person begins to resist or tries to leave — unless there’s something very, very serious that’s occurred, in no circumstances should a guard start to use force against them.”

The law is clear, King said, that guards have no more right to use force to execute a citizen’s arrest than any other citizen.

“Just picture an individual, a normal person shopping at a shopping centre who decides they see somebody shoplifting. They’re going to stop that person and wait for the police to come,” he said. “Obviously that individual punching that person would be considered completely ridiculous and excessive and same goes for the security guard, they have no right to do that.”

One of the major issues is that it’s up to police to decide whether a security guard’s use of force is excessive in a criminal sense, King said. “Historically, the police are not going to take the side of the shoplifter, they’re not going to take action against the security guards unless it’s a very, very extreme example,” he said. “At the end of the day it’s proportionality.”

Security guards can do what they can to record a crime and assist the police in apprehending a suspect, “but when they jump over that line to becoming de facto police, where they exercise the rights of the state and take that person into custody, that’s a huge problem,” he said.

The incident Ball witnessed last week is being reviewed by Securiguard and the BC Liquor Distribution Branch, said Kelsey Yates, a spokesperson for Securiguard, which provides security personnel to BC Liquor Distribution Branch stores. “We take these situations very seriously,” she said in a statement.

But the security company’s “officers are highly trained in identifying and apprehending shoplifters and may utilize reasonable force in accordance to the Criminal Code (section 25) in cases where the individual is resisting arrest and is physically aggressive,” she said.

Yates said the company’s loss prevention officers are required under B.C. law to complete basic security training, a 40-hour course. According to the Justice Institute of British Columbia website, the course focuses on professionalism and ethics, legal studies, report writing and personal safety.

Further company orientation and training teaches loss prevention officers about loss prevention techniques, powers of arrest, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and search techniques, she said.

Loss prevention officers are also required to take courses on mental health and disability awareness, cultural sensitivity and non-violent crisis intervention.

Security guards who carry handcuffs must also take the 24-hour advanced security course, which according to the justice institute covers advanced force options theory, introduction to control tactics and the application of restraints.

While some BC Liquor Stores have loss-prevention officers on site at all times, others have none, according to Viviana Zanocco, a spokesperson for the BC Liquor Distribution Branch.

It’s “dependent on the amount of theft and the level of threatening behaviour exhibited by customers,” she said. The security guards are meant to watch for theft and “are expected to make apprehensions as appropriate.”

Stephen O’Keefe, a retail loss-prevention consultant who spent 30 years leading loss prevention departments for the Bay, Sears and Walmart, said many companies have safety-first policies based on the idea that security guards and employees are better off letting a suspected thief go if they get into a confrontation.

Loss-prevention officers aren’t trained as extensively as police and they don’t have the same backup available, he said. “You’re kind of on your own.”

But theft is a major issue for Canadian retailers, who lose $5.1 billion to it every year, he added.

“Walking away is good option, but if it means that you are giving carte blanche to a shoplifter to steal and then to walk outside and punch the (security guard) in the face knowing that they’ll back off … that’s a recipe for disaster.”

Robillard, the spokesperson for the Vancouver Police Department, said he too would recommend loss prevention officers disengage if a situation becomes violent. “It’s not worth the product,” he said.

“Effecting an arrest as a loss-prevention officer can be a very dangerous job, because you don’t know what you’re dealing with and if someone starts resisting you. It can get very dangerous quite quickly,” he added. Vancouver police have been called a lot to situations where loss prevention officers have been pricked by needles, threatened with knives, or sprayed with pepper spray, he said.

But security guards are allowed to use force to arrest or detain someone they suspect of a crime.

“You have to look at a number of factors when determining whether the use of force was appropriate, but they definitely are allowed to use force,” Robillard said.

Kevin Westell, a Vancouver-based criminal lawyer with Pender Litigation, said the question of reasonableness is simple when you look at the extremes.

“You wouldn’t let a loss prevention officer shoot somebody who is stealing a block of cheese, but are they allowed to put their hands on that person in order to retrieve the cheese? Absolutely.

“Are they allowed to keep their hands on that person in order to detain them so that they might be arrested? Absolutely.”

It’s trickier when the person accused of the crime fights back, he said.

“They’re not obligated to put up their dukes and get into a fair wrestling match with the other person. They’re allowed to use the force necessary to overwhelm the other person so long as they’re not intending to hurt them anymore than is necessary to fulfil a valid legal goal,” he said.

In the case at the BC Liquor store, Westell said it “could be something close to reasonable force and it could be way over the line.”

“You’d have to know the exact specifics and hear from everybody involved to know whether it’s reasonable or not,” he said.

Ultimately security guards need better training and more clarity around the point at which they are obliged to disengage, King said, so they don’t get themselves into a situation where they are assaulting someone.

The Star Vancouver 

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