CHAPTER EIGHT - HEADING FOR THE FINISH LINE

   

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 called a racist more times than I care to count and many of my white officers have been called racist. I even had a white officer that was called a racist by a white woman for following her. In my opinion, it is a ploy to distract us, and they do it in the hope that we will back off. It is kind of like arguing with a leftist. When you have them backed into a corner they resort to name calling.

 On one occasion I got a call that three Black females and one Male were possibly stealing. After locating them, my supervisor, who happened to be Black, and myself, began following them at a safe distance. They walked into numerous stores and I would call the store number warning the manager to keep an eye on them. After one such call a manager, who also happened to be Black, told the thieves what I was doing. It is disheartening when you are trying to help someone and this is how they repay you. They walked out and confronted my supervisor, calling him a sellout and an Uncle Tom. They also called me a racist. My supervisor was livid and they even called the police on us for following them. The police had a good laugh when they arrived and after advising us not to follow them, they left. These thieves then stole from 3 or 4 stores after the police left. I learned later that they stole from about 7 or 8 stores altogether that night.

One Saturday afternoon I was on mobile patrol when I saw a black male walking with a woman into the Food Court. He had a shirt on that read I F_ _ king Hate Everybody. We have a dress code and I quickly parked and walked over to him just as he about to walk through the door. "Sir" I said, "I'm sorry but you can't wear that shirt into the mall". The woman he was with had already entered the mall but he turned to me and said "Your kidding, right?". I said no sir and I explained our policy to him. He said "your a racist". I ignored this, and repeated that he couldn't wear the shirt into the mall. About this time the woman he was with, stuck her head out of the door and asked what was going on. He told her and she said to me "You mother f_ _cking racist. This is like Trayvon Martin." She then said "I bet if someone came in here wearing a Confederate flag tee shirt you wouldn't say anything." I said, you are right but neither would I say anything if they were wearing a black power tee shirt." She said "Yeah right." and both left saying that they would never come back to the mall. As I have stated earlier controversial shirts like a Confederate flag tee shirt or a Black Lives Matters tee shirt are okay as long as they are not causing a disturbance. Profanity on a tee shirt, or other clothing, is never allowed. Nor is sagging.

On New Years Eve 2015 I got a call to one of our jewelry stores. They were smelling a strong electrical burning smell. It was around 3:00 PM and the mall was scheduled to close at 6:00 PM. After investigating the situation, I could not detect smoke or fire but the smell was pretty strong. Maintenance and mall management were gone for the day and they weren't answering their phones because it was New Years Eve. You never want to make an unnecessary fire call and it not be anything because I have done that a couple of times and it can be embarrassing. My philosophy is, however; better safe than sorry so I called 911. At first the Fire Department couldn't find anything, but after an hour of searching, they found a hot circuit breaker getting ready to burst into flames. If it had flamed after the mall closed there might have been a fire and it could have caused some pretty serious damage. I don't think that I did anything that extraordinary, but my supervisor and operations manager put me in for the Officer of the Month Award for January 2016 and I won.

In April 2016 my daughter Misty came to work for us and within a few weeks of being hired she was doing her checks behind one of our outside restaurants. While there she smelled rotten eggs, which was the smell of a natural gas leak. She called our on duty police officer, and our site supervisor at the time. She also talked to the restaurant manager, who wanted to ignore the problem. He wasn't going to evacuate the restaurant and have to throw food away. She said that he was very angry at her for wanting to evacuate the restaurant. On her own judgement, Misty called the gas company and they found two major breaks in the line behind the restaurant. The gas had even traveled down into the sewer line, which was very close to the restaurant. The restaurant was full of people and a gas explosion might have killed and injured numerous people. For her action I encouraged our operations manager to give her the Officer of the Month Award, which she won for the month of May 2016.