As I while away the minutes (turning into hours) in the Red Sox "Virtual Waiting Room", waiting to purchase tickets to a game, I popped up the news to see what's happening in the world, and I saw this little tidbit of info:
OMAHA, Nebraska - With extra security on hand and holiday shoppers waiting at the doors, the Westroads Mall reopened Saturday morning, three days after a gunman killed eight people and himself at the mall's Von Maur store.
Extra security. I suppose they were there to make people feel safer about going shopping, but what is it for, really? Are they anticipating a rash of depressed loners stalking the mall and waiting for their opportunity to pounce? Are they concerned about the classic "copycat" crime spree? Are they merely overreacting because it's the Xmas shopping season, and they have already lost valuable shopping days? Your answer depends on how cynical you are.
Extra security implies that there was insufficient security there to begin with or that any security officer could have stopped a nutty bastard with a gun concealed in his coat. He got in the elevator and opened fire long before any mall cop could have done anything or even recognized an issue. Providing more of these people is a knee-jerk reaction designed to make people feel safer, when in fact, they were never less safe than three days ago when they knew nothing of his fiendish plot.
I couldn't tell you when the last time a copycat crime took place, unless you count the hoards of troubled loners who run into public blasting their weapons. Those are all copycat crimes, but they take place months or years apart. Protect us against them.
The value of the Xmas shopping season is immeasurable to the tiny stores that populate the mall. I'm guessing that there were a few Merchants Meetings over the past couple of days and that they decided that "In the best interests of the community" the mall should re-open with heightened security so that shoppers will not be deprived of the ability to over-spend on gifts that people either don't want or don't need. Tis the season for feeling secure. Rest assured shoppers, Xmas in Omaha will not be cancelled.
Meanwhile, I'm still in the virtual waiting room, but safe in my home while lone nut jobs roam the streets. Xmas here, however has been cancelled.
5 comments:
OMG. Christmas has been canceled? Is this because I hit a [rein]deer like FS5 said? I mean, it was just one..not like a whole slew of 'em or nothin.
I said I was sorry. What more do you people want from me?
My friend Heather in Omaha was in Von Maur that day. She went shoppin' on her lunch hour. I don't know...crazy...
I have worked in mall security in the past and I can tell you that even in these post-9/11 days, mall security is not what it could or should be. Like most of the security industry, a couple of companies control the lion's share of the market. In the mall sector, it's an outfit called IPC, which does security for shopping malls, and ONLY for shopping malls. Chances are, any mall security person you see is employed by IPC, regardless of what his/her shoulder patch may say (IPC has something like 90% of the mall security officers in the US and Canada). And, like most of the security industry, IPC pays its employees as little as possible, to maximize its own income.
The average security officer in the US makes about $7.50 an hour. That's less than you make at McDonalds. As a result, you get three types of people working in security (in line-officer positions): retirees trying to eke out a living beyond the pittance from Social Security; part-timers, whose primary obligation is to their primary job; and cop wannabe's.
Most security personnel want to do a good job, and they want to try to make society a little bit safer. But when your employer pays you squat, and you don't have benefits, and you have to work every minute of OT you can get, and there's little or no training, it's kinda hard to maintain a positive attitude.
The biggest problem is that decisions regarding security services are often made by purchasing departments, not security professionals. Your average purchasing agent may be a whiz at getting the best price for 2,000 pencils, but what does he know about security, or fire prevention, or life safety, or terrorism, or crime prevention? Too often, the decision is made on the basis of the lowest bid received; the lower the bid, of course, the lower the payscales (and payscales are usually one-half the hourly rate charged to the client).
The average security professional today has to be at least conversant with approximately 40 different fields of endeavor - everything from crime prevention and fire protection systems to executive protection and homeland security. Yet society expects us to build and maintain that knowledge, and to protect their lives and their children's lives, for less than we could make flipping burgers.
As we say, "Yeah. Right."
Great post. I agree with you absolutely.
I'm tired of everyone acting like all of us mentally ill are going to go out bang up the nearest shopette.
Most of us are more worried about keeping ourselves alive then worrying about bothering to take out anyone else's.
And as usually is the case with these kinds of incidences, we only decided to re-act until after the tipping point of this person.
Our society doesn't care about us mentally ill until we do something out of desperation to get the help we need and deserve like that guy up in NH that pulled that stupid hostage crap.
If society would just chip in and help those of us with mental health struggles then maybe we'd be able to avoid this stuff. At least reduce it greatly.
We can start buy asking our Senators and Congresspeople to support mental health parity acts. Such as the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act of 2007. It will simply require that health insurance companies provide the same coverage for mental illnesses and substance abuse issues as with other physical illnesses.
But no, that would be too simple. We do the least amount possible and then are shocked that someone would lash out at society in that way. And ask, "What can we do to stop this from happening?"
But when the next sensational news idea falls in the laps of the greedy, lustful corporate media whores--the mentally ill are quickly and without much protest, swept aside and under the rug.
Why has Christmas been cancelled?
Emotionally I just don't want to deal with it. It just seems so pointless to me, so I'm choosing to ignore it.
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