10/12/12
Additional shift (11:00-19:00)
So near the end of November, I finally get a call from my company asking me to fill in as a temporary guard at the mall near my house. I'm thinking, "What? No events to post me at?" since they liked to do that. The job was to be a bike patrol officer for the weekends and to basically fill in any shifts if any other guards missed out. Basically all I had to do was patrol the parking lots of the mall and keep order since everybody wanted to do last minute Christmas shopping and parking was a bitch. I didn't think much of it--as a guard, we get paid a fair amount for observing and reporting problems to the local police. But this is a mall, we get our share of big experiences.
On my first day, I got suited up. Helmet, high-reflective jacket and bike pants and I went out. Now, to get something clear I've seen bad things--I have been in fights before, stopped a few people wanting to commit suicide, and as a certified paramedic volunteering for events, I've dealt with some concerning issues. So don't get me wrong when I tell you that this surprised me.
Two-ish hours into my shift, I'm biking past one of the anchor stores to which I see a crowd of people (employees and patrons) screaming at an obviously upset white male. One of the employees kept yelling "We have security! I will call them!" Pulling up, they tell me that the white male had punched a woman in the face. White male turns back to look at me, at this point I'm calling for back-up, and he books it into the parking lot.
"Security One, Security Two."
"Go ahead."
"Possible assault, (Insert store name here) entrance, East parking lot."
"Ten four, en route."
A few minutes later, I'm still waiting for the other guard to arrive so I decided to go looking for the male (yeah I lost sight of him, shut up). I return with no luck, and mid-way through my conversation with a store employee, a group of patrons begin to tell me that the male in his vehicle. He's apparently just sitting there. As I begin to start an investigation from the employees/patrons as to what exactly happened, an irate dark-skinned male goes after the assailant.
At this point, I'm thinking "Oh fuck here we go."
I run after him (followed by the crowd) and next thing I know, I hear "Come out here you motherfucker!" in a deep Indo-Canadian accent. Amusing at first, until I saw him yanking the guy out of the car.
A punch or two were exchanged before I ordered the dark-skinned man to step back. Obviously, didn't work (nobody will listen to a rent-a-cop right?). Suddenly, the assailant gets back into his vehicle and as I'm yelling at him to get out, the other male decides to have another go and at this point I went physical. I grabbed the irate male and rip him away from the vehicle for his safety. The white male begins to back up in the vehicle, almost running me and a few others over before he took off in a southbound direction. Some of the people got the license plate number and the attending police officer took my information down.
My cardio and respiratory rate had shot up. I was pretty pissed that I didn't get an arrest because of some random guy who wanted a piece of the fight. But shit happens.
Then, it turns out, that man is the assaulted female's husband.
Also, the assailant was taken away by the police.
He parked at the other side of the mall.
No comments:
Post a Comment