[00:00:02] Speaker A: I'm Alex Stone, former military service member and law enforcement officer, now CEO of Echelon Protected Services, one of the fastest growing private security firms on the west coast. And this is ride along, where our guest and I witness firsthand the issues affecting our community.
I believe our proven method of enacting meaningful change through compassion and understanding is the best way to make our streets a safer place and truly achieve security through community.
Hey, I'm Alex Doan. Welcome to the ride along, brought to you by Obsec Media Group. Today, amazing guest, Doug Tolan. Doug, introduce yourself to the folks at home.
[00:00:52] Speaker B: Hello. My name is Doug Tollen. I own Oregon security training. We do DP SST training for private security professionals here in Oregon.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: Yep. And how long have you been doing that, Doug?
[00:01:01] Speaker B: I've been a armed security professional since 1980. 519 85 85 back in my day. And I've been instructor for DPST since 1997, since the beginning.
[00:01:11] Speaker A: And you've been not just in the game for a while, but you've been deep in the game. Right. So let's just start with DPSsthe. Right. The training manuals.
So in every state, you know, most states have some type of centralized organization over security. There's some that don't, like Idaho, Colorado. They decentralize according to cities.
[00:01:34] Speaker B: Right.
[00:01:34] Speaker A: But in Oregon, we have the department of Public Safety. And then they add standards and training at the end. Right. They oversee not just private security, but everything from any type of emergency service. Fire.
[00:01:46] Speaker B: Yeah, everything. Yeah.
[00:01:47] Speaker A: And so you've been involved in a lot of that.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:01:50] Speaker A: So take us through that and take us through how we got to where we are today.
[00:01:54] Speaker B: So going back to, like, the origin of it, I think the law passed in 1995, went back January 1, 1997.
At that point, there was a basic training course for unarmed security and an armed security upgrade that's evolved over the years to where it is now. And it's, it may be changing in the not so distant future depending on when the salt comes out, but it may be changing. So for now, it's a same courses are a little longer. The training's evolved. It's gotten better over the years.
It's got some room for improvement. Like anything else, it's always evolving and we try to evaluate that and keep it current as best we can.
[00:02:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:37] Speaker A: Out of everyone I know in this industry, I think that you've kept it more current than anybody else. I've taken all of your training classes, obviously, for years now.
Explain kind of your ethos and your philosophy behind private security.
[00:02:52] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:02:52] Speaker A: And just explain how, you know, because I really learned this from you, the difference between private security and law enforcement and their roles.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: So, you know, I'd say the primary function for the private secured professional is to protect lives and property. In that order. Lives come first. Property is important as well, but you have to be safe out there, go home safe at the end of your day. And that's sort of the focus I've always looked at is safety for the person doing the. Providing the service and then for the people you're serving for the job. With public safety, they are first responders. They do an amazing job. They're limited in the fact that they're responding. Right. Which means it's already happened.
[00:03:28] Speaker A: It's already happened. Typically, sometimes the security guards, the one that called it in.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. And they're usually the first person at the scene with any level of authority might be that private security provider. So there's some basic training that they go through to get the emergency response when and how to call 900, and one's part of that training. So working together in partnership with law enforcement to try to build a better team there, to put that extra amount of people out there that are trained observers to gather information, relay it in emergencies or even non emergencies as area information, that's kind of the idea, but safety first.
[00:04:01] Speaker A: Safety first, always. And so in Oregon, we bifurcate security according to unarmed and armed and. Right, right. And so in Oregon, we have to. We have to actually train because the, what we call is a pistol qualification course. In order to carry that firearm, you have to pass the PQC one.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: The pistol qualification course number one.
[00:04:25] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:04:25] Speaker A: Which is one of two tests that law enforcement also have to pass in order to carry their firearm.
[00:04:31] Speaker B: Yes. That's the basic course for anyone in the state that's doing any kind of firearms, caring for professional. Professional fast, either public or private. When it comes to public safety, police, even like an arson investigator, if they have a police role, investigative role, everybody has to go through that basic course. Now, the police go to the police academy. Yeah.
[00:04:51] Speaker A: They get a lot, a lot of firearms train, but at least a week worth. Yeah.
Eight to 10 hours a day, maybe five days.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: And that's just shooting time, not including all the classroom that goes on besides that. So there's quite a bit of that. Our training is a three day, 24 hours class that has to cover everything.
[00:05:07] Speaker A: With range time, all the ad.
[00:05:09] Speaker B: Range time is all in that. Yeah. So that's puts it a little bit more condensed. Right. And that's sort of what we're doing now. I think that at the level right now, it's a basic training, and that's the minimum standard. So DPSD is not set a high bar. It's not raritanium. Right.
[00:05:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Raritanium.
[00:05:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:28] Speaker A: That'd be hard to dig out.
[00:05:29] Speaker B: It's gravel. It's gravel. It's a baseline. Right. So it's pretty basic stuff. And that gives everybody a chance to participate. That's one of the nice things I like about the security industry. Is anyone, any race, any religion, any color, any sexual orientation, anybody can do this job.
[00:05:43] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:05:44] Speaker B: Anybody can do it. It's across the line. It's an opportunity. People say, well, I want to help someone. Okay, you're right there. You're directly making those connections on a daily basis. So. Yeah.
[00:05:54] Speaker A: And I'm glad that you said that.
That is one of the.
I think the main things that distinguish law enforcement from private security is that with private security, you really are able to make substantive long term relationships because you're in that same place every day.
[00:06:12] Speaker B: Yeah. Same, same people.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: Same people walking the same. They're living their life. You're living your life. You're all living your life in that space together. And so we kind of, as a company, we dove deep into that space.
[00:06:25] Speaker B: Cool.
[00:06:26] Speaker A: Right. And so we said, hey, we want you to know every single person's name. We want you to talk to every. Go by the tent, talk to them, become friends with them, know who they are. Right. Not just the property owner, but anyone in your territory, take the time to have a relationship. Right. Because that's something that law enforcement now, especially with the low recruiting numbers.
[00:06:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:50] Speaker A: Right.
[00:06:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:52] Speaker A: They don't have time to do that. They're going call to call.
[00:06:55] Speaker B: They are literally going call to call. And where we are now with current location, it's probably at one of the most difficult times to recruit and to entertain.
[00:07:07] Speaker A: Yeah. There's a lot going on right now. So kind of. I'm. What? I'm interested because I kind of look up to you kind of as a mentor, because I've been taking your classes and listening to you for years now.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So you.
I want you to talk about law enforcement because you've also spent time as a reserve in law enforcement.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: I went through a reserve academy in the eighties. I was a reserve police officer for about two years. I have an associate degree of criminal justice from Clackamas Community College. So that's the kind of the extent of it. But I've worked with law enforcement for. Well, since the, since 85. And there's been a, and a lot of that is Portland metropolitan area, Pacific Northwest, some disaster response for FEMA, but mostly in this local area. So I've seen it change. And again, the goal from this early on was to build a partnership with law enforcement, correct?
[00:08:01] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: There's still a ways to go after 20.
[00:08:03] Speaker A: Why is that in New York?
[00:08:05] Speaker B: I think part. Sorry. I think part of it is because there's always that little sibling rivalry going on.
[00:08:11] Speaker A: Yeah. And dig down deeper than that.
[00:08:13] Speaker B: Well, it's, every once in a while you get that sense it's us and them. And that's one of the things that's concerning for public safety and private security is we're all part of the same community, and we should try to work on building that connection because sometimes it gets a little strained, and I know that's, you know, it works both ways. Maybe private security's not pulling their weight fully because some companies are saying, hey, we just don't want to do anything.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: The minimum standards are the minimum standards.
[00:08:38] Speaker B: Yeah. There's a reason why it's a minimum standard. Right. It's. It's. It's not. Yeah.
[00:08:42] Speaker A: So this rivalry, I kind of exists not just between law enforcement and private security, but corrections.
[00:08:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:51] Speaker A: Right.
911 communications and also the firehouse, the laptop.
[00:08:57] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a little bit of that. And there's, I mean, there's always the jokes between public entities where, you know, these guys are heroes because the other team and that kind of switches back and forth between police and fire. And with, you know, with private security, we're sort of part of it, but not all the way in. Even at DPSST, we, the private security unit is independent. Our system is based on the fees you and I pay. It's a pay to play. Right. So pay your security tax, get your license, do your security training. That's right.
It's not fully part of public safety. It's integrated into it. And there's been probably the last manual, I think, that we just. That's out now for unarmed was the first time we had the public safety side and private security kind of talk to each other to really build a better version of that. In the past, it's private, secure, would. Would publish it, police, DPST would check it off, make sure, passed all things that needed, and then it would come out. But this. There's been some better community for that, better connection for that. I think now with the manual we're using.
[00:09:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:59] Speaker B: And there will probably be another one in the not so distant future. It updates all the time.
[00:10:02] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. There's definitely updates coming.
[00:10:04] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:10:05] Speaker A: Always. I currently just. Full disclosure. You've been on the board for private security. I currently on the board here for private security.
[00:10:12] Speaker B: I wrote curriculum with DPSST on the subcommittees for 17 years.
[00:10:18] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And, yeah. Good, good. Very good curriculum.
[00:10:23] Speaker B: Right.
[00:10:24] Speaker A: The manuals are great if you go by the manuals. All the trainings there. Right. It really is there.
So to kind of stay on that topic, so, of this unfortunate rivalry, after 911 in New York, they almost fully integrated private security because they realized that if we're going to catch terrorism, if we're going to stop terrorism, then we really need that private security officer that's at that building at all times, or that is standing at that corner at all times or in front of that building at that door at all times to really feel comfortable communicating effectively with law enforcement.
[00:11:00] Speaker B: Yeah. Now, one of the things, post September 11, there was a lot of changes in the security industry. The biggest change, and this is the last time I'll probably say this ever out loud, but the one and only group of security providers in the country that made the right choice. And here we go. The us federal government.
[00:11:20] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: Because the United States federal government for security, post September 11, all the contracts are all armed, and it all pays prevailing wage.
[00:11:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:29] Speaker B: And they're the only ones that got it right. Everybody else went some other way. Well. Well, the government will protect us. The government can't stop telemarketers, right?
[00:11:36] Speaker A: I mean, yes, I wish they could.
[00:11:38] Speaker B: You know, they do the best they can, but, yeah, you know, my phone is literally off, but that's so, yeah, they got it right. Other. Other placement war games technology. Cameras don't stop bad guys. They record. I'm not saying should they do, but putting in more cameras hasn't stopped a criminal in the history of ever.
[00:11:56] Speaker A: No. In fact, there's an ad I see regularly on my feed that's one of those stands that just stands there and says, this guard doesn't go on vacation. And I'm like, yeah, but that guard can't trespass anybody. Like, what are you talking? Like?
[00:12:08] Speaker B: Oh, there's a cardboard cutout, full size color picture of a female security professional in Sherwood on the third floor of a building, and it's in the window. That's probably as effective as stuff that's out there. Yeah.
[00:12:24] Speaker A: Now, I've gone deep into tech, as I talked to you, and so we've currently are in the process of merger my tech firm and this other tech company, and I'm just a president and one of the owners. We got a lot of great talent at our company, and we've gone deep into AI. So I think there is.
The future of security is direct action through AI. Yes. It's beating cycle time or response time.
[00:12:54] Speaker B: That's the biggest factor is being there if you're not already there, getting there fast.
[00:13:00] Speaker A: Faster than the dispatch system, the current dispatch system will allow. Right. So we're still working on Alexander Graham Bell technology.
[00:13:07] Speaker B: Where's the 911 app, guys? Somebody figure that out. Where's the app to call 911 so you can use at least or FaceTime to direct connect? How. How many years do we have to have that before that comes out?
[00:13:20] Speaker A: And, you know. Well, I'm glad that you asked that, because we're. We're launching our app, Sitrep, which is called situation reporting.
[00:13:28] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:13:28] Speaker A: And it actually does that. And it allows for live activity feeds between guards and property owners or property managers.
[00:13:35] Speaker B: That's cool.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: So you can actually just do a live activity feed and you can upload a photo. Hey, this is happening right now. It goes directly to. The guard is geolocated. So the guards geolocated by district. And you don't have to call 911. You have to lose all that cycle time.
[00:13:49] Speaker B: It's technology like that that's going to get us to set the app we're.
[00:13:53] Speaker A: Talking about, because it is.
[00:13:54] Speaker B: Almost everything starts in the private sector first, and then it translates into either military and then trickles down to law enforcement.
[00:14:01] Speaker A: This is what I'm hoping, because then I might be able to retire someday.
[00:14:05] Speaker B: Wouldn't that be nice? Yeah.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: Yeah. We had a client, dutch brothers coffee.
[00:14:09] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:14:10] Speaker A: They were broken into.
It was here in the Portland metro area. We have their contracts in multiple states.
Yeah.
[00:14:18] Speaker B: Good coffee.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: Actually. It is good coffee. I actually love dutch bros. No.
[00:14:22] Speaker B: Shameless Frito.
[00:14:23] Speaker A: No, it really is. And it's an Oregon company. So from the time the person loitered and was attempting to break in, we received an AI alert directly to the guard, and they got there in three minutes and 22 seconds and three. I'll say it this way. We had activity that was unusual activity, picked up by behavioral analysis. Aihdenhe. It alerted the guard directly. No dispatch required. No calls. No, I'm on hold. Right. It went directly to the guard. The guard was able to receive the alert, get on site, and had them in handcuffs in three minutes and 22 seconds.
[00:14:59] Speaker B: That's. That's good. That's good. Because if you think about like average police response time. Just as a percentage.
[00:15:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:06] Speaker B: In 2008, national average for police response was 23 minutes.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: Like a matrix. So you're in. So you or someone in your family, someone kicked in your front door.
[00:15:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:16] Speaker A: You're in your closet because you're not a firearm owner.
[00:15:19] Speaker B: Well, I am, but some people are. Some people are.
[00:15:21] Speaker A: If you own a firearm, kicking my.
[00:15:23] Speaker B: Door, that's a terrible plan.
[00:15:24] Speaker A: If you own a firearm, hopefully you already. The problem's already settled and you're calling law enforcement to come help.
[00:15:29] Speaker B: Right. Right.
[00:15:30] Speaker A: Sort it out. Sort it out. But let's say you don't own a firearm. You're in your closet, you're hiding, you're panicked. Someone's going through your house, maybe multiple individuals. You're on the phone trying to get law enforcement to show up and you're talking about a 23 minutes wait.
[00:15:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Now, in Oregon, DPSD conducted a nine one telecommunication study, also 2008. That's the most current data I have. I don't know if they've done it since then, but the police response in Oregon was eleven minutes. Perspective on that. Mass killings last, start to finish, ten minutes. FBI numbers.
[00:16:00] Speaker A: Yeah. For sure.
[00:16:01] Speaker B: Yeah. So the police will be there 1 minute late.
[00:16:04] Speaker A: 1 minute late every time.
[00:16:05] Speaker B: It's not their fault. Think about it. The emergency has to happen first. Someone that has to go call 911 in a panic. And the worst part, the worst day of their life. And then wait.
[00:16:15] Speaker A: Very hard to communicate.
[00:16:16] Speaker B: Right?
[00:16:17] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:16:17] Speaker B: Speak English or Spanish. Those are two options probably. And then wait for the call taker. The call taker gets the information, relates to the dispatcher. Dispatch relays it to. Remember that old game telephone where you start.
[00:16:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:27] Speaker B: Okay. By the time it gets.
[00:16:28] Speaker A: Alexander Graham Bell technology. That's what we're working on.
[00:16:31] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:16:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:32] Speaker B: Watson, come away.
[00:16:33] Speaker A: 1St 100 years ago.
[00:16:34] Speaker B: It's a tin cannon string.
[00:16:35] Speaker A: It really is. Yeah.
[00:16:36] Speaker B: I mean, it's highly technologically advanced with some of the stuff they can find once they get, once you get connected. Yeah, but that's the problem.
[00:16:44] Speaker A: It's that that time, it's that initial cycle time in that response. Yeah. It's killing us, literally. And criminals know, criminals understand that it's gonna, it's gonna take seven or eight minutes for the cops to show up to a home invasion burglary. So most burglar, most commercial and residential burglaries occur in less than seven minutes.
[00:17:06] Speaker B: Right. Because ten minutes or less, I mean.
[00:17:08] Speaker A: They'Re in and out.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: Because again, if police response is eleven minutes and they've got ten or seven to ten minutes before they're gonna get there. Even if they got it immediately, it's still gonna take that time to the process.
[00:17:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:20] Speaker B: So. And then alarm response calls for police are usually not the highest priority.
[00:17:24] Speaker A: No. Because there's so many false alarms.
[00:17:26] Speaker B: Right. I use. I like the term unfounded because it went off. It just didn't go off of the. Right. It went off for a reason.
[00:17:32] Speaker A: So unfounded.
[00:17:33] Speaker B: Better term, unfounded.
[00:17:34] Speaker A: Too much wind.
[00:17:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:35] Speaker A: It's always too much wind.
[00:17:36] Speaker B: It's too much winter or the temperature change because it rains in Oriental.
[00:17:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:41] Speaker B: Wait five minutes.
[00:17:41] Speaker A: We had a bank in where I. Where I was the popo and one of the banks in our town. It was guaranteed to go off at least five or six times a week.
[00:17:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:51] Speaker A: And it had been doing that for 20 years.
20 years before I became a police officer in that town.
[00:17:58] Speaker B: Maybe fix that.
[00:17:59] Speaker A: And so we tried.
[00:18:00] Speaker B: But there's the other thing you can try, but the other part of that is when you do those alarm responses, be it private security, public safety, those can be very dangerous. Because if there really is somebody there in that building, if it's a. In Oregon, if it's a non residential structure, then looking at a ten year felony in prison, it's burglary in the second degree. If they're intermitting unlawfully, the intent committed crime while doing that, that's ten years for the person there. If it's a dwelling where you customarily sleep at night. Difference between building and dwelling for Oregon, 20 years, it's an a felony.
[00:18:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:32] Speaker B: Can you imagine what someone would do to not go back to jail or prison? Well, prison for.
[00:18:37] Speaker A: I can imagine. I've had to fight people coming out of homes.
[00:18:40] Speaker B: Right.
[00:18:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:41] Speaker B: So people don't think about that when 20 years.
[00:18:43] Speaker A: Facing 20 year sentence will make someone be very desperate.
[00:18:46] Speaker B: I know those are maximums, obviously.
[00:18:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:48] Speaker B: But still, it's.
[00:18:50] Speaker A: It's, you know, you might get a shot in the arm in a lollipop.
[00:18:53] Speaker B: Right. Right.
[00:18:54] Speaker A: At the DA's office. You just go in, you check in, you get your lollipop, then you get your shot in your arm, then you're fine. No, I'm just kidding. No, I'll never forget, we love our das. You know, that's another thing. It's that sibling rivalry. Right. Because the district attorneys are really part of that criminal justice system.
[00:19:09] Speaker B: Sure. As long as they're doing, you know, prosecution, that's cool.
[00:19:12] Speaker A: As long as they're actually engaging in criminal justice.
[00:19:16] Speaker B: Yeah, that'd be cool. Right on.
[00:19:18] Speaker A: That would be interesting. Yeah. In some places, that'd be a welcome change that, actually. Yes, for sure. Yeah.
[00:19:25] Speaker B: Right.
[00:19:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:25] Speaker B: So, you know, the police are trying to do their job, but if they take the DA and the D day stops, then it's very frustrating for police. So police are trying to do their job. It gets stopped. They said, we're not going to be taking those cases right now. Well, I get the resources are a factor, but maybe reallocate some recourses so we can clean things.
[00:19:44] Speaker A: Something.
[00:19:45] Speaker B: Something's got to change.
[00:19:46] Speaker A: Right? For sure. So you own a company, Oregon Security Training.
[00:19:51] Speaker B: Yes. Thank you.
[00:19:52] Speaker A: It's the best website.
[00:19:52] Speaker B: Oregon security unplugged.
[00:19:54] Speaker A: Oregon securitytraining.com. i love it. Right. Because. Only because the marketing. Because when you google, it's exactly what someone google.
[00:20:01] Speaker B: Well, I had a great name for the company. It was like 07:00 in the morning on a Sunday. I was at a cruise in the Bahamas. I just got back in Miami, and I woke up with the perfect name for the company. I'm like, no one's ever going to find that.
[00:20:13] Speaker A: No, no.
[00:20:14] Speaker B: So. But what are people going to look for? Oregon Security training. We did have to change it to
[email protected]. because the website's been up for 21 years. It's been on. So copyrighted in 2020. Be safe out there.
[00:20:28] Speaker A: Yeah, that's how I found you, actually, because I was still in law enforcement when I started doing security. I was on the board of the fraternal order Police.
[00:20:36] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:20:37] Speaker A: And we were taking private gigs back then, and I did not understand. That's when I became aware that. Oh, my gosh. And even when, if I'm a police officer, if I'm not working under my authority of my town, right. Which gives me authority to act as a police officer, that I actually had to have a security license even as a police officer.
[00:20:57] Speaker B: Yeah, that's kind of weird. Here in Oregon, police was like, wait a minute. I got to go through a basics. Unarmed class and an armed class. I've been a police officer 20 years.
[00:21:04] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:21:04] Speaker B: Here's why. Because you've been a police officer 20 years, not a private security professional.
[00:21:09] Speaker A: It is a different job.
[00:21:10] Speaker B: Same thing with military. I get a lot of guys prior to military, like. Yeah, well, the reason why you go through the training. Different roe. Right. Different rules.
[00:21:18] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:21:19] Speaker B: Different policies and procedures. Right.
[00:21:22] Speaker A: When you're the popo, you're looking for probable reasonable suspicion. You're gonna try to graduate to probable cause, you're gonna make an arrest, and you know, you can't do any of.
[00:21:30] Speaker B: That with private security in Oregon. You already have to have probable cause.
[00:21:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:35] Speaker B: And that's, it's a different process. So that's one.
[00:21:39] Speaker A: I like to call it a hundred percent probable cause.
[00:21:42] Speaker B: 100%. Not pretty. Kind of. Not like all the way. Sure. Yeah.
[00:21:46] Speaker A: And probable cause isn't supposed to require the term itself. Should not need 100% because it doesn't.
[00:21:53] Speaker B: Probably substantial objective basis. That's the other thing. Objectivity. Nothing. Subjectivity. Not your opinion, not the way you feel about it. What can you testify to under penalty? Perjury in the court of law? Not just what you think, but what can you prove? Right?
[00:22:07] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:22:08] Speaker B: So that's one of the things which I try to emphasize anyway. Some companies use it, some companies don't. Because one unfortunate problem we run into is we do training based on DPSST standard, which is again, a minimum standard. Right.
[00:22:20] Speaker A: Minimum standard.
[00:22:21] Speaker B: And then private security professionals go back out into their companies in the community and different companies have different policies or post orders that then restrict what they can do by law. It's already a minimum standard. So if your company policy falls below that minimum standard of the DPSST, you know, I get. You could do a, you could, you know, you could probably sign an NDA and settle out of court, but if it goes to court.
[00:22:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:47] Speaker B: They're not going to look at the policy and just. I was just following orders doesn't really work as a defense like anywhere in law.
[00:22:53] Speaker A: Last I checked, in fact, there was a very large lawsuit in a major city. I don't want to get the details, but essentially the security guards failed to act.
[00:23:04] Speaker B: Right.
[00:23:05] Speaker A: They failed to. So in the agreement. In the agreement or in the contract, they were contractually obligated to attempt to make a space safe. A female was mugged. I believe she was murdered for her purse. The security guards failed to act. They called 911. That's all they did.
[00:23:24] Speaker B: They called their supervisor to get permission to call nine one first.
[00:23:26] Speaker A: That's what. Yeah.
[00:23:27] Speaker B: Meanwhile, back at the ranch.
[00:23:29] Speaker A: Meanwhile, back at the ranch. Exactly. Female dies from a mugging.
Everyone loses their job, everyone sues. Everybody and everybody wins except the security company who lost.
[00:23:42] Speaker B: Also, go back to what we said. If you have training and you could do something and you didn't do that, let's clarify something there. In Oregon, there's no duty to act for private citizens.
[00:23:50] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:23:50] Speaker B: There's also no duty to retreat.
[00:23:53] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:23:54] Speaker B: The law is 100% perfectly great. What do you know? When did you know it, based on your training and experience, what was the best course of action. Now, if your company policy doesn't meet that minimum standard and they don't have to, they don't have to cause privacy rights on private property, but it comes down to that. And that's kind of what happened in that case. Like, if you see something and you do something about it and you choose not to, that's an option. But when you go back and say, what did you know and when did you know it? Including the training you've had, that's another factor which have to play into that discussion.
[00:24:27] Speaker A: I think it always does. It always does.
[00:24:29] Speaker B: Right.
[00:24:29] Speaker A: And as a company. Because I own a company.
[00:24:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:33] Speaker A: And I could not imagine. You know, it's funny, I had this conversation this morning because today is a very special day where people are supposed. There's supposed to be some protests going on.
[00:24:43] Speaker B: Yeah, it's spicy.
[00:24:44] Speaker A: And, you know, the conversation is, what's our roe?
[00:24:48] Speaker B: Right.
[00:24:48] Speaker A: Are we gonna observe if we see. Exactly. And so we had to have that kind of, in our briefing this morning really early.
And I said, hey, this is gonna be the Roe.
[00:24:58] Speaker B: Right.
[00:24:59] Speaker A: So. And it's all about preserving life.
[00:25:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:02] Speaker A: And I would prefer that one of my. If. If someone. If a guard, and I prefer the term guard, if a guard or an agent of the owner that's there to protect a property or person sees a person being injured, especially possibly a serious physical injury, I would expect my guard to act and to stop that.
[00:25:25] Speaker B: Right. And you can do that. And like you said, absolutely, you can do that.
[00:25:29] Speaker A: And that's the minimum standard of training, is that you can do that.
[00:25:33] Speaker B: The interesting thing about the basic training and maybe talk about arm later, but the basic training course, if I put a name on it, and I literally did for my own little YouTube channel, it's stuff you should learn before you turned 18.
[00:25:46] Speaker A: Oh, that's great.
[00:25:47] Speaker B: Yeah. It's stuff you should have learned before you turned 18 and became an adult. You have to be 18, ironically, to take it, because your signature is legally binding and passive background check and a few other things. But unfortunately, people aren't aware they're looking at that screen in front of them and it's telling you what to do, and sometimes it's misinforming you. Right.
[00:26:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:08] Speaker B: So that's one of the things I run a lot of do a lot of have to clarify things about things like use of force or making an arrest and stuff that people just don't really have a good concept of because they've been told, well, you can't do that. I've had guys come back to my class for refresher and their instructor had told them in their training that you're not allowed to use, you're not allowed to do certain things. Well, what they said was our company doesn't allow, but if you're an instructor for DPsDhennae, you need to teach the DPSSC manual and teach the curriculum. If you add and enhance that, or you say, here's the curriculum, however, our company doesn't allow it, that's fine. But you can't tell someone that they can't do something that's dangerous because I've run it extremely few times.
[00:26:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:54] Speaker B: Right now I know there's like 400 unarmed instructors in Reagan, so there's going to be some, there's quite a few companies, at least 400 security companies. So that's, the other thing is trying to get security companies to come together and have a conversation. Stop. Thank you, by the way, for letting me be here. I really appreciate it.
[00:27:12] Speaker A: Yeah, this is important.
[00:27:13] Speaker B: Yeah, it is.
[00:27:15] Speaker A: The reason it's important for the folks at home who might not know this. So currently there's. How many police office sworn officers? Maybe 4000, 5000.
[00:27:22] Speaker B: DP's says he put out some interesting numbers this year and I'm not sure where that falls. So I'd have to look on the, on the website. It's, it seems like there appears to be more than I thought there were. I thought we had maybe five, 6000.
[00:27:36] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:27:37] Speaker B: It may be different numbers, but those numbers were from like November 2020. Well, it takes three years to make a police officer in this state.
[00:27:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:45] Speaker B: You can be on the road before that, but you're not a certified basic certificate. For about three years you go through an academy and you go through evaluation and training. So. But you'll be on the road. You'll be on the road with a, you know, a field training officer. But I. You takes three years. So unless we had a massive uptick in certifications. That's, that's interesting, but.
[00:28:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
Especially with record retirements.
[00:28:10] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, that makes sense, doesn't it? Right?
[00:28:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:13] Speaker B: We probably are looking at at least a two to one ratio, I would say private security, public safety, two private security professionals. That's one of the reasons recently Oregon had to go through and say, hey, we need to put marking on uniforms so that if you're providing security services, it says security.
[00:28:30] Speaker A: That's right. So that there's, so there's probably at least two times more.
[00:28:37] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:28:38] Speaker A: Possibly three times more, somewhere in that range security officers than there are law enforcement.
[00:28:45] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:28:45] Speaker A: Currently working the streets.
And, I mean, I would even venture to say that in law enforcement, you're gonna be more management heavy.
[00:28:55] Speaker B: Right.
[00:28:55] Speaker A: Then you are in a secure security industry. You're probably gonna be a little more lean unless you're working for a big, big box company.
[00:29:02] Speaker B: Well, unlike most cities around here, the Burgs and villes, Burgerville. Right. Wilsonville, Newburgh Burgs and bills, they may have, like, four or five guys on during the day because there's admin, there's a chief, there's maybe a detective, there's patrol. But graveyard, one or two police officers.
[00:29:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:18] Speaker B: Right. Graveyards are during the week. You have one or two police officers in cities with 20,000 people.
[00:29:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:24] Speaker B: 10,001 ratios. About. Right. 10,000 to one.
You call nine one for the police, respond. They get there as fast as they can. I know a lot of police officers, good friends of mine, they'll go as fast as they can legally. They'll move heaven and earth to help people. That's what they want to do. But they're just, there's that.
[00:29:43] Speaker A: There's not enough.
[00:29:43] Speaker B: There's not enough. And there's that gap.
[00:29:45] Speaker A: And so that gap currently is being filled by private security.
[00:29:48] Speaker B: That is.
[00:29:49] Speaker A: And it's not the perfect fit. No, because private security, we don't carry a mandate from the government that allows us to legally violate someone's rights in order to conduct investigations, to develop reasonable suspicion and probable cause in order to effect an arrest so that we can make a community safe.
[00:30:06] Speaker B: Right. So you can't do that. You hear that word a lot. Am I being detained?
[00:30:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:09] Speaker B: Am I being detained? In Oregon, if a police officer has a reasonable suspicion, reasonable, objective suspicion, that's the basic interaction for police in a professional house. Now, police are people too, believe it or not. And you can have a conversation with a police officer just like you could with anybody else, about the weather, about your favorite cup of coffee or whatever you like, your favorite microbrewery, what have you. But when a police officer is acting in their professional capacity as a police officer in Oregon, they have to have a reasonable and objective suspicion. Step one. That brings them to step two, which is detain and interrogate interrogation. By definition. Here would be questions propounded by the police in order to seek solutions to a crime, to establish and develop probable cause for either an arrest or later on, maybe a warrant. Right. That's kind of the process for police officers. So a lot of times people say, yes, you're not free to go. Right. And for their safety, they can put handcuffs on into a path search for weapons. You also have constitution protected rights of, you know, against self incrimination, Fifth Amendment and Fourth Amendment, against unreasonable search of your papers and personal effects and documents. You do have to have government issued IED if you're operating a motor vehicle. That's. So there's some checks and balances there, but that's the whole point of the constitution, right? Checks and balances.
[00:31:27] Speaker A: That's right. Yeah, that's right. And so there are too many calls. And in order for us to work well, security companies need to work together. Now we go, yeah, we have to start working together because, you know, just in downtown, I think, you know, there's a downtown safety network. So just in downtown Portland, I, not including the surrounding neighborhoods, but just downtown, there's over a hundred security companies. That doesn't surprise operating in downtown Portland right now.
[00:31:57] Speaker B: Well, a lot of those, like yourself, probably started with a bigger box company, and they didn't like the way things are going. They said, this is not good security. I want something different. And they start a smaller micro business and build it from there. And that's, that's where a lot of those are. So they're startups or small companies. Oregon's full of small businesses. It's getting more and more difficult to maintain a small business, I'm sure, as you will with some of the governmental administration out there and just the economy. Right. I mean, that's. It's tough. I get stuff.
[00:32:26] Speaker A: Yeah. So definitely worthwhile.
[00:32:28] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely.
[00:32:29] Speaker A: But definitely, Doug.
[00:32:31] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:32:32] Speaker A: Tell us a little bit more about your training program. Where can, where people can find you online. You know, I, we love spending time in the studio, but this is called the ride along. Yeah, right. It's a ride along podcast for a reason. We always like to go into the streets and see, you know, what's happening. So tell us a little bit about what's going on where people can find you on social media, YouTube, x, whatever you got going on.
[00:32:55] Speaker B: Okay, so we are, it's Oregon security training. It's o s t, oscarsier Tango dot oregonsecuritytraining.com. that's the website. And of course, we do private security training.
We do NRA classes, pistol, rifle and shotgun defensive tactics. And that's kind of the gap between unarmed security and arm, where we look, look at all the defensive tools and equipment you might need to do your job safely and effectively. Just did that yesterday. And you might. I can't. You might not be able to tell, but I got pepper sprayed yesterday.
[00:33:21] Speaker A: Oh, cool.
[00:33:21] Speaker B: Just for the. Took one for the team on that. Yeah.
[00:33:23] Speaker A: Appreciate that.
[00:33:24] Speaker B: Yeah. I hate pepper spray.
[00:33:27] Speaker A: I hate it. I did not like OC spray when they put us through that in the army and they were doing jumping jacks and push ups and.
[00:33:34] Speaker B: Yeah, it's not, it's an experience for sure.
[00:33:37] Speaker A: I think I'm, I shouldn't say this, but it's my kryptonite. Itches my lungs in a way that it'll, it'll give me a cough for like two, three days.
[00:33:46] Speaker B: Oh man, that's tough.
[00:33:47] Speaker A: It's best.
[00:33:48] Speaker B: Yeah. It can really affect people.
[00:33:49] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:33:50] Speaker B: It's a useful tool, but appropriate when necessary. We have a.
I'll get the website ost.org insecuretrain.com. i do have a small little YouTube channel, Tollens tactile t three. Like share, subscribe. I think we have 180 subscribers. I know. Huge. I had Scott over at curse blue line one of the.
[00:34:08] Speaker A: Oh, nice.
[00:34:08] Speaker B: Around here. Make me a patch for my armor care says social media influencer. We got like 20.
[00:34:13] Speaker A: I love that.
[00:34:14] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a lot of fun. We sort of break down the unarmed manual in some of the earlier videos. Oh, they're not good, by the way. It's like ASMR. I gotta crank it up to 80. It's, it's basic stuff, but that's exactly what I want it to be. I don't want to be super cool, but like this one, this is amazing. This place is so fun, you guys. So cool. So yeah. Tolls tactical tales three like share, subscribe. We're doing that. I did some cooking videos because after lockdown brown part one, I food poison myself twice because I don't.
[00:34:42] Speaker A: That's right, food.
[00:34:42] Speaker B: I don't know. Food. So I started some videos on how not to cook food because there's lots of good videos on the Internet on how to cook food. I thought you should probably do some on maybe what not to do. So check that out if you're interested.
[00:34:54] Speaker A: I checked it out. It's hilarious actually.
[00:34:56] Speaker B: Thanks, bro. Thank you, guys.
[00:34:57] Speaker A: I almost pissed my pants. It's actually pretty funny.
[00:35:00] Speaker B: I can't believe I haven't used any profanity in the last time.
[00:35:03] Speaker A: I'm actually working really hard.
Every once in a while we'll drop a little profanity.
Yeah, exactly. We, we try to, first we try to make it family friendly.
[00:35:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:17] Speaker A: On the show, obviously.
[00:35:18] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. I want my grandkids to be a watch this, right? Grandkids that's great. Yeah, that's good. So those are the. That's what I'm doing. Other than that, just training. We probably run well, 52 weeks a year, so. 365 days a day. It's worth a day. That's right. That's what I meant to say.
[00:35:35] Speaker A: 365 a year.
[00:35:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:37] Speaker A: I think I take Fridays off, right?
[00:35:39] Speaker B: No, I'm doing something for business, you guys, if you're a small business owner, you get it. You're working always 20. You know, you're working 40 hours a day because you're working your job and two other people's job to do, all to keep it running. So. But that's a. That's why I love. I wouldn't have it any other way.
[00:35:55] Speaker A: No.
[00:35:56] Speaker B: So we just train, and then if I'm not trained. Because what do you do for fun? Watch YouTube videos on how to train better or how to shoot better or how to be better with a gun or how to be just building my. Myself as a person. Right. To be better. So I don't just ever rest on what we're good enough now let's just call it good. I'm always looking at what's the better way. Right.
[00:36:15] Speaker A: I have another question for you. I'm gonna go back. So I was gonna take us back and go to the streets, but I got one more question for you.
[00:36:21] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:36:21] Speaker A: And I haven't asked this question before, so I have a whole theory about patrol vehicles.
[00:36:25] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:36:26] Speaker A: So we don't use marked patrol vehicles.
[00:36:29] Speaker B: All right.
[00:36:30] Speaker A: Interesting.
[00:36:30] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:36:31] Speaker A: Yeah. And the reason we don't do that, this is what I tell my clients, and this is what I deeply believe.
Law enforcement uses marked patrol vehicles because they have to violate laws, traffic laws.
[00:36:41] Speaker B: Right.
[00:36:42] Speaker A: They have to have lights and sirens. They have to drive fast. They have to transport people or things or evidence. Right, right. So, you know, there's a reason why. Why the patrol vehicle exists.
[00:36:54] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:36:55] Speaker A: And as private security, we. I I would prefer that we're not noticed when we're on. On site.
[00:37:02] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:37:03] Speaker A: I. We train our. Our staff to sneak under properties, park in areas that are low lit.
[00:37:11] Speaker B: Right.
[00:37:11] Speaker A: Get out of the vehicle, observe your surroundings, and patrol in the shadows and try to actually catch people doing bad things.
[00:37:20] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. That's a good way to do it.
[00:37:21] Speaker A: Right.
[00:37:22] Speaker B: So I'll be devil's advocate on that for a minute. Devil one, to be fair. And this is just the way it is. The. The. You know, the crown vic is the single best patrol car in the history of the world.
[00:37:35] Speaker A: Sorry, I'm old enough. I'm old enough to. I drove a crown patrol.
[00:37:38] Speaker B: Now, if you got to chase someone's police officer, are not the best choice but for just patrolling and driving around, and there's bunches of them out there. And so small businesses that are trying to get started could buy an ex taxicab or an ex police car. And then. And then for the business, then that's marketing. Right? So, for that security company, that's advertising.
[00:37:57] Speaker A: When it is advertising. Yeah.
[00:37:58] Speaker B: So that may be another way to look at it. But as far as if you really want to be proactive, which is what you're talking about, then, yeah, I have no problem with that. Right. You. You roll in there in a car. That's normal for that area, right?
[00:38:13] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:38:14] Speaker B: You get out, and you're walking around, and you're. People say, well, you're out looking for trouble. No, we're looking for the precursors to trouble. We're proactive. Meaning you're not waiting for something to happen that's good patrolling. Right. B. Trolling leads to citizen to citizen contacts. That's the unarmed basic training. Right. And that's what we need. Citizen to citizen contacts. Constantly making those connections.
[00:38:35] Speaker A: If you're not finding something wrong, you're. You're building your human intelligent assets, your hias on every property, you're gathering intel. You're kicking it up just to operations, who's in, feeding it out to the community coordinators, who are then using it to train their individuals on what to look for next.
[00:38:52] Speaker B: Right. It sounds like you're doing a good job using that construct to even take it to the next level.
[00:38:56] Speaker A: Yeah, we are losing the marketing value, but that's okay. What we've always realized is that if a. If you have a patrol car and they have the amber lights and we've all seen them. All seen the. Right. And it's a Prius now, you know.
[00:39:11] Speaker B: Oh. Don't know.
[00:39:13] Speaker A: It's a Prius. So you got the cool step number.
[00:39:15] Speaker B: Prius. Sorry.
[00:39:16] Speaker A: You got a Prius with amber lights. They drive through a residential area, maybe a apartment complex, maybe a commercial building, and. And what you're telling the bad people are, okay, now I know what to look for, to know when you're on.
[00:39:31] Speaker B: Site, and probably about the same time every night.
[00:39:33] Speaker A: Same time every night within a couple minutes. So the bad guys, they're just across the street, and they're like, okay, amber lights are gone. We have at least an hour or.
[00:39:41] Speaker B: Two, and then some of those things, instead of getting out, walk around, they're chilling patrol out the window as they drive by.
[00:39:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:39:46] Speaker B: Cause they gotta get so many hits like the ups.
[00:39:49] Speaker A: I don't even know if they're yelling anymore. They might just have a recording.
[00:39:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Just playing on a loop.
Yeah. That's unfortunate, but that's, you know that everyone has a right to their own business model.
[00:39:59] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:39:59] Speaker B: The amendment one.
[00:40:00] Speaker A: Those companies do make money. They make money.
[00:40:02] Speaker B: Yeah. But are they the best choice for what's going on in the world? No. No.
[00:40:07] Speaker A: Are they gonna. If you're. If you have an employee that's going. That's being assaulted as they're leaving a building, are they gonna do anything about it?
I wouldn't bet on it. If that was my, one of my loved ones that worked in that building, I wouldn't bet that my loved ones safe.
[00:40:21] Speaker B: Right. And, you know, some of the companies out there right now, they're doing this. If you're following the law and using the force, reason, amount of force, nest for the purpose, and you were in a situation, you could be fired because.
[00:40:33] Speaker A: You broke the policy all the time. No, this happens all the time.
[00:40:36] Speaker B: Yeah. Where. Where you did nothing wrong. Legally, you. You followed the minimum standard, the DPSD, you followed the training, and yet the company fires you because they have a policy that prohibits that. Now, that's you again. First bone. You can have whatever policy you want as long as it doesn't break the law. But there's. There's a problem when we're seeing people just not actually understanding that, you know, the real world is not the little box you look at all the day it's out there. And you and I and the professionals in this industry are out in the real world every single day, 24/7 right. There's no days off. There's no, you know, somebody's got to watch when you're on vacation, when you're home, when you're sleeping. Someone's got to be out there. And that's. Yes. The police, to extent, they're going from call to call to call all night long, and they're reactive. Private security, proactive. We're not waiting for bad things to happen to good people.
[00:41:28] Speaker A: You got to be proactive.
[00:41:29] Speaker B: Right. Yeah.
[00:41:30] Speaker A: That is the security game.
[00:41:32] Speaker B: It really is.
[00:41:33] Speaker A: It's a security game. And if you're not being proactive, you're. You're wasting everyone's money and time and also safety.
[00:41:40] Speaker B: Right. Like, go back to first thing said. Right.
[00:41:42] Speaker A: Well, if you're not.
[00:41:43] Speaker B: Lies in property.
[00:41:44] Speaker A: If you're not being proactive, you yourself aren't safe.
[00:41:47] Speaker B: Right.
[00:41:47] Speaker A: We had a security guard that, right here in Portland, down by the river maybe almost a year ago, gentlemen walked up to the security guard as they were in their car and shot him in the head.
[00:41:59] Speaker B: Yeah. That also just happened recently in an.
[00:42:04] Speaker A: And so people, there are some assumptions made that maybe the individual thought it could have been a police officer because, again, the uniform and the cars. Right. And so, but at the end of the day, if you're being proactive, your head's on a swivel. If you're proactively looking around and doing things you don't, you look less like a target.
[00:42:24] Speaker B: Right. Well, I think there's a kind of sometimes confusion. Like, only the police wear badges. Only police carry guns. The police also wear badges and also carry guns. See amendment two. So first amendment for freedom of speech, freedom expression. Badge has been around a long time. Police is a concept about 800 years old. Private security. The first time someone had a market bazaar and someone stole the clay pot, they looked around, found that big guy with a stick. Hey, you got a stick. Yeah. You hit the guy in the head with. The next time you take the clay pot, you can sleep in the barn and get a chicken a week. We have the world's first security contract.
[00:42:57] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:42:58] Speaker B: It's not new. It's. We've been doing this since the beginning of time.
[00:43:01] Speaker A: Yeah. I think a bed of hay and a chicken, especially if the chickens laying eggs, I might sign up for that contract.
[00:43:08] Speaker B: It's a little fancier now, but technology, right? Yeah.
[00:43:12] Speaker A: Great. Doug Tolan Oregon securitytraining.com ost dot oregon securitytraining.com dot I can't recommend another person. If you're in the Oregon market, if you're going to be in the Oregon market, if you're going to be doing any type of executive protection, you're going to come up here and you need that training certificate to work in the market. This is the guy to contact.
[00:43:35] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:43:36] Speaker A: He pretty much wrote the manual, literally.
[00:43:40] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:43:40] Speaker A: Thanks for coming in. Now, we're not the type of folks that just meet in buildings and use our monkey hands to punch buttons that create words into sentences. Right. We're actually going to go out into the street. We're gonna be following Michael Bach around. A lot of, you know who he is. And we're gonna be helping folks, and we're gonna be securing some areas.
[00:44:00] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:44:01] Speaker A: How does, how do you feel about that?
[00:44:02] Speaker B: That sounds good.
[00:44:03] Speaker A: I see you have your body notice. Yeah.
[00:44:04] Speaker B: Body armor.
[00:44:05] Speaker A: I love it.
[00:44:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm wearing a uniform to badge body. I'm not gonna goes along with that. That's. If you're not, you should be.
[00:44:11] Speaker A: All the time? Yeah, all the time. All right, we're gonna meet you on the streets with Bach. Doug's gonna be with us. We're gonna see you in a little bit. Thanks.
[00:44:18] Speaker B: Thank you.
