Following the money trail as DHS outsources security to private corporations.
The private firm Universal Protection Service are the front-line security in San Diego County’s leg of the second-busiest rail corridor in the country, which runs through Los Angeles, up to San Luis Obispo.
It’s a low-paying job, with long hours, lots of risks and a wide net of responsibility.
Witt and his fellow officers worry. They worry everyday about how ill-equipped, untrained and unprepared they are to respond to even relatively routine emergencies, let alone a train collision or terrorist attack.
Throughout the past several months, inewsource examined hundreds of pages of government contracts, employee handbooks and hazard mitigation plans, interviewed law enforcement agents and security professionals at the federal, state, and local levels, and talked with dozens of current and past employees within Universal Protection Service — men who risked their jobs, and some of them say their lives, to bring these issues to light.
“This is a Homeland Security issue that’s been going on way too long and been ignored,” Witt said.
Universal Protection Service is a national company that’s responsible for living up to the terms of its local contracts. Two San Diego government transit agencies are responsible for enforcing those terms.
Universal is appealing a $20,270 fine for worker safety violations and is the subject of an ongoing state investigation. The company did not acknowledge phone messages.
The transit agencies denied multiple requests for interviews. In an email, one agency said officer training was adequate. The other agency left a partial voicemail that did not address training.
Shortly after its formation in 1975, San Diego’s Metropolitan Transit System contracted out its security to a local company called Heritage Security Services. The North County Transit District, formed in 1975 as well, followed Metropolitan’s lead and hired Heritage in 1997.
Both districts provide transportation services to 94 million passengers every year by way of 19 locomotives, 667 buses and 134 trolleys that crisscross between Mexico’s border, downtown San Diego, Escondido and Oceanside.
To protect its passengers, the San Diego County transit districts hired Heritage to patrol, protect, and arrest as “pro-active enforcement” officers.
North County requires officers to “Act as Primary Responders to Terrorist threats and incidents.” Metropolitan Transit System requires them to “Perform first aid, maintain order, and assist rescue operations at the scene of accidents and train/bus disasters,” among many other things.
The contracts are always the same — the private security company guarantees that its officers come prepared for the jobs at hand, and in turn, are awarded lengthy contracts worth millions of dollars.
On May 1, 2012, a rapidly-expanding national security company called Universal Protection Service bought Heritage Security Services. All of the company’s officers and contracts came with it.
According to these contracts, all officers are required to pass basic and advanced training curriculums, be licensed in first aid and CPR, able to conduct bomb searches and building evacuations, and prepared to act as primary responders to terrorism threats.
For more than $9 million a year, the districts hired officers to respond to fatality scenes involving train vs. pedestrian accidents, suicides, and automobile collisions; to react to calls for fainting, shortness of breath, heart attacks and seizures; and to assist in collision investigations, help during power outages and maintain crowd control when needed.
Yet multiple interviews have revealed that much of the contractually-obligated training — which would enable them to do all of those jobs — hasn’t happened for at least the past five years.
While the officers are not your standard “rent-a-cops” — many come from the military, police or private security fields — according to them, little of their past is applicable to San Diego’s relatively unique transit setting.
“As a police officer,” said Universal Officer Mo Hahn, speaking about his 27 years as a San Diego police officer, “if I went to a train crash, I would have no clue how to open doors, windows, escape routes. I’d know nothing about — and I don’t ever remember having any training as a law enforcement officer — on how to deal with a train crash.”
“So,” he said, “law enforcement can be just as lost at a train crash as we would be arriving with lack of information and training.”
Aside from a brief bit of press in 2009, Heritage and Universal have largely escaped the public spotlight for the 31 years they’ve operated within the county.
“It’s something that, I’m afraid, the public doesn’t know — and needs to know,” said Witt.
http://inewsource.org/article/security-breach/
Information and intel outsourcing at homeland security:
http://borderlinesblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/information-and-intel-outsourcing-at.html
Growth of the homeland security economy, spending is up nearly 200% in five years:
http://newsinitiative.org/story/2006/07/27/growth_of_the_homeland_security