Veteran G4S Security Guard Murders 49 In Orlando

G4S is an absolute joke of a company. Here in the UK I thought the Olympics fiasco where the British army had to be drafted in to save the day would have seen a significant demise in the company but alas that was not the case.

There must be some heavily invested political interest in this company for it to be still going the way it is.

Unfortunately, the guard industry is really a commodity. Poor benefits and extremely low wages are the norm for the industry. Realize that most companies which employ guard companies are just looking to minimally comply with regulations that are specific to their industry. Essentially, any warm body will do. This is not exclusive to G4S but simply a sign of the commoditization of the the industry. Until the companies hiring these guard services push for higher quality at higher cost that is unlikely to change... and I doubt that will occur.

As I alluded to in another post, I think regular psychological screenings would be effective (not absolute, there are no absolutes in human behavior) in weeding out emotionally unbalanced people or have misaligned values, but that would cost money. Unless a regulation were made (get over it people, companies do not police themselves very well) to equally make all guard companies implement psych screenings, it will never happen.

Any accusation from a fellow employee should have been investigated, especially being a security guard. I have been investigated by a previous employer for sexual harassment that a fellow employee accused me of, anonymously. I was cleared as the complaint was baseless. In this case, the fellow employee came forward and G4S should have taken it seriously.

We have to recognize that all outrage, frustration and recriminations aside, the guard services industry is built upon "lowest bidder prevails" models and is not the fault of G4S or any other provider serving the typical guard services client. They screen as well as the margin allows but in this case there wasn't a preceding act by the attacker that would have compelled his employer to see him as a threat and act. One employee reporting wild talk or aggressive fantasizing by another is cause for concern but its hard for the employer to sort out the level of instability until it reveals itself in actions or performance problems.

An updated version of Hell in Dante's model might well be employment as the human resources manager for a guard services company!

At a former job in a former industry I had an employee murdered on the job, by another employee. They were romantically involved and she called it off, but while he was "off duty" he came to the building, caused a malfunction with the equipment she was operating, and when she went to check on it he shot her in the head. Needless to say I and the rest of his coworkers were shocked. "He didn't seem like the type" etc. was said a lot the next few weeks. The company was not held liable for his actions even though he came to work dressed in his uniform and displayed his employee ID to gain access to the property. We had no evidence, and believe me the local law enforcement searched, that he was unhinged in any way. We had one of his coworkers tell us after the fact that he said something to the effect of "I won't let her go" after the breakup, but there was still no physical proof he was going to go crazy. All that to say hind site is 20/20...

Another security guard terrorist, this one in uniform.