They Carry Weapons. So Why Don't Security Guards Have to Get Use-of-Force Training?

In 2004, when California first started regulating security-guard licenses more extensively, the nation was at war and the memory of 9/11 was fresh.

It made sense, then, that state leaders decided to dedicate four hours of the 40-hour course to handling threats related to weapons of mass destruction and other forms of terrorism.

Nearly 20 years later, some in the industry say that part of the training is looking outdated — especially as businesses around the state increasingly rely on private security guards to protect their stores not from terror threats, but from shoplifters.

In late April, that reliance came to a tragic end when a security guard at a San Francisco Walgreens store near Union Square shot and killed Banko Brown, a man accused of shoplifting about $14 worth of merchandise, including a box of cereal.

Like the rest of the more than 301,000 licensed security guards in California, Michael Earl-Wayne Anthony, the guard at Walgreens, had been required to watch four hours of training videos focused on WMDs — but not a single minute on appropriate use of force and deescalation techniques.

“To be honest with you, from 2004 to now, there’s not been a security officer in the state of California that’s found any weapons of mass destruction,” said David Chandler, president of the California Association of Licensed Security Agencies, Guards and Associates, or CALSAGA.

“I think we’re teaching the wrong subject for four hours and not teaching the security guards how to get along with people and how to protect people’s rights,” he added.

The Walgreens killing of Banko Brown isn’t the first time in recent years that an altercation with a security guard in California has resulted in someone’s death. In 2019, a man caught trespassing in the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento ended up on life support and later died after a security guard allegedly kneeled on his neck for more than four minutes.

That incident took on new significance after George Floyd was murdered in a similar manner the following year by a Minneapolis police officer, said Democratic state Assemblymember Chris Holden, from Pasadena.

“It just seemed to be so senseless,” Holden said of the death of Mario Matthews, who was found to have had methamphetamine in his system when he entered the arena around 3:30 a.m. and ran around the court pretending to dribble a basketball.

“We realized that these private security guards, who also carry a baton and a gun, are not trained to intervene in those kinds of situations at all,” he said. “They are not taught deescalation techniques. They are not taught how to use objectively reasonable force or understand implicit and explicit cultural training.”

Chandler, of CALSAGA, agreed. He said his group supported Holden’s legislation in part because security guards are now being asked to do more than ever before — and are encountering far different responses from the public.

“The unhoused community — they’re pushing back now,” he said. “Years ago, they would find somebody who’s unhoused, they would say you need to move along. … Now, these guys are fighting back. They’re attacking guards. They’re getting into physical altercations with guards. So the guards really need training on deescalation tactics and getting along with people, especially people with mental issues.”

Chandler said responsibility also lies with the security firms that hire the guards, to make clear that human life is more important than property. The security firm that employed Anthony, Kingdom Group Protective Services, had changed its policies (PDF) just weeks before Brown’s shooting, instructing its guards to be more hands-on when witnessing someone trying to steal merchandise.

With that kind of policy, said Chandler, “you’re asking for a fight. You’re looking for a fight.”

“All these major companies have insurance,” he added. “You know, if you’re losing so much money that you can’t afford to be in business, well, then guess what? You can’t be in business.”

Cordell, the retired judge, agreed, noting that huge companies like Walgreens and the security firms are asking low-paid workers to take the risk — and fall — for them.

“We’re living in a society where the distance between the haves and the have-nots is getting wider and wider and wider and greater and greater,” she said. “We have this big corporation that nobody’s really looking at and saying, ‘What are you doing about this issue?’ [They know] full well that the folks that they’re bringing in are not well-trained. They’re not well-paid.”

And now, Cordell said, two lives are ruined.

“This security guard — he’s going to be messed up for the rest of his life. The family of this young man [Brown], I mean, he’s gone,” she said. “Everybody’s messed up. And yet you have the company sitting back and nobody’s kind of saying, ‘Well, wait a minute, what’s your responsibility in all of this stuff?’”