Reflections of An Uncommon Common Man

     I have always resisted the temptation to profile and stereotype people. This job, however; has made me realize just how quickly many black people are willing to stereotype me. To many, I am just a racist old white guy in a uniform. In my opinion, most black people do not hold that opinion but far too many do. One of my favorite lines from the movie, Remember The Titans, is when Denzel Washington says "I don't dance unless I hear music". In other words my suspicions are not aroused until you give me a reason to be suspicious. If I see anyone acting suspicious, or I have been told that a person is trying to steal, I will respond and follow the people involved at a safe distance. Again, my job is to detect, deter, observe and report. When a person violates mall rules I will say something to them, or follow them, and I could care less if you are black, white, hispanic, asian, homosexual, transsexual, straight or have tentacles growing out of your head. I have been calle...

We have had our share of drug overdoses which have happened primarily in the parking lot. I didn't see this happen but we had a woman run naked through the mall high on drugs one morning. On another occasion I got a call that a man was acting crazy and when I got there he was dancing in the middle of the road having himself a good ole time. Another time a man pointed out a woman that was slumped over her steering wheel. Upon further investigation I realized she was the mother of my niece which was an awkward situation for me. She was so drunk that she didn't recognize me.   One night I got a call that two men were slumped over in a car near Shoe Carnival. I called our on site police officer and he arrived on scene a little before I did. When he first arrived he thought they were dead. After I arrived he was talking to a man on the passenger side that was just starting to gain consciousness. We spotted syringes right out in the open and the officer told me to call 911 in order ...

  Occasionally we run into someone having sex in and around the mall. Or an occasion we have sexual perverts and predators causing problems. One Christmas holiday season I got a call from a tenant that he noticed a nearby photo booth rocking back and forth. He thought something weird was going on inside the photo booth. When I arrived it was obvious that something was happening. I stealthily approached the booth and threw back the curtain which revealed a 14 year old boy being serviced orally by a 14 year old girl. The photo booth was out of order and I guess they thought this would give them some privacy. On another occasion I got a call that something was going on in the east parking lot over by Sears. When I arrived on scene there was a car and all the windows were fogged up. I tapped on the window and it was obvious that a teenage girl was orally servicing a teenage boy in the front seat while a girl was filming it on her cell phone in the backseat.  One day I got a call t...

    To this date I have only had to make physical contact with two people in my 11 years at the mall. In both cases I was assisting a police officer in making an arrest. One night in September 2013 I received a call from the manager of one of our clothing stores that a lady carrying a large number of shopping bags had stolen several children's jackets. I called our on site police officer and we both arrived on scene at the same time. The manager was standing in front of his store when we arrived. He pointed the lady out to us who was in the store next to his. She was looking at something on the far wall with her back to us.   I asked the manager if he wanted to confront her and he said that he did. I told him that we would be there to back him up if things went south. As we walked through the door she spotted us and immediately became defensive. She was loudly saying that she hadn't done anything and to leave her alone before we even got close to her. The manager tol...

 One morning I got a call from a shoe store that a gun had dropped out of a man's waist band and fell to the floor. He was with another man at the time and they were last seen walking toward the food court. I was by myself that morning and on the far end of the mall when I got the call. As I walked toward the shoe store I figured that the men were long gone and had already left the mall. To my surprise I saw them walking back toward the shoe store from the direction of the food court. They fit the description given to me over the phone. I called 911 and remained on the phone with the operator as I followed them from a safe distance. They walked into store after store throughout the mall heading toward the west end where they eventually turned around and headed back toward the food court. As they walked near to the exit doors I was afraid that they were going to get away. There was no sign of the police. Then, in a flash, the police burst in through the food court entrance and from ...

One day I had a caller that said that a woman was standing in our fountain taking her clothes off. It was a hot summer day around noon. Upon arrival I found a homeless woman, about 35 years old standing in the middle of the fountain. She was soaked to the skin and wearing only a bra and jogging pants. When I asked her what she was doing she said it was so hot she was just cooling off. Being homeless she was probably trying to steal the coins out of the fountain. We had an officer who at the time he was working the midnight shift and he was very good at catching people stealing money out of the fountain. Many days I would come into the security office and there would be cups of coins that he had confiscated from people trying to steal money. One night he was lurking in the shadows watching two heavy set black ladies who were stealing coins. They had removed their pants and panties so they could wade around in the fountain. He jumped from his hiding place and scared them so badly that th...