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TRAINING
IS UP TO ME

A phrase that has been overused, but nonetheless has significant meaning for us today as we talk about our pledge to take advance level and skilled based officer safety courses even when our employer, the client, the state or our security license does not require us to do so.

Our training, all of which is perishable if not used and replenished, is not necessarily for the benefit of our employer or governmental regulators or to meet statutory requirements but instead they are for our own personal safety as we face the increasingly unknown dangers of our everyday duties.

It is imperative that we take our safety and the safety of those that we have been hired to protect seriously and do whatever it takes to be at a high level of proficiency with our tools as well as with our overall knowledge and understanding or our profession, duties, scope of authority and the laws that both govern us and those that we use in any enforcement duty.

It makes no difference if you\’re in the security profession part time or full time, temporarily or as a career, you \”MUST\” make it your responsibility to be well prepared and well trained at any cost. The criminals don\’t care if you\’re a new hire or a seasoned veteran and they won\’t show mercy on you whether you\’re 20 years old or 70. It makes no difference to them whatsoever!

Regardless of assignment, duties, city or country, the likelihood of you having an interaction with someone who won\’t respect you, refuses to comply with your commands and who engages you in some level of physical resistance or assault is high and becoming higher everyday as the duties and enforcement authority of private security officers continue to increase substantially.

Your safety and wellbeing is your responsibility and it begins and ends with you. You\’ve chosen this profession for whatever reason, now you must take every step possible to stay safe, on and off duty.

If it is to be, it\’s up to me never rang truer as it does here and now. YOU must take your job, your safety and the safety of others seriously, as if your life depends upon it… BECAUSE IT DOES!

The Below 50 initiative is an extension of several safety and training programs and security officer memorial recognition services already offered by Private Officer International.

As security, public safety, loss prevention and private police officer assaults, injuries and deaths continue to drastically rise, we as an organization know that there are steps that can be taken by individual officers as well as by their employers to stop the tide before it\’s too late.

Almost 74 % of all on-duty security personnel deaths are caused by trauma including gunshots, stabbings and brutal physical attacks.

Unfortunately, many of these deaths could have been avoided with proper training and due care exercised by the employee. This is why this campaign is vitally important to every security officer and every company who employs security staff.

Equally important is the pledge to train, abide by company policy and the law and to use the utmost caution during every shift and on every assignment regardless of how remote or quiet and uneventful the job seems to be.