Why Charlotte Transit DOES NOT HAVE SECURITY

by Our Company President - Adam Tranum

As a former security manager that oversaw the entire Charlotte Office for G4S, I worked alongside the security manager assigned to the Charlotte Transit Center. After leaving G4S and working for a Company Police and Security Agency, I participated in the bidding process for Charlotte Transit Center’s security contract. This was around 2018 to 2019.

Prior to the light rail coming to Charlotte, Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) was covering security at the Transit Center with their secondary employment team (Off-duty officers). Once the light rail came it, Allied Barton started security of the light rail with a mix of Company Police and Security. As the light rail services increased so did the contract requirements.

The next transition came when G4S took over the security of the contract. Our mission was to provide security for the light rail and the transit center only. We did not have the contract or authorization to provide security for the bus lines, unless the bus came into the transit center. The light rail portion of the contract was comprised of all Company Police. The only time security officers were allowed to work the light rail are the ones that were waiting for their Law Enforcement commission to be approved. In that state of North Carolina, company police are fully sworn police officers by Training and Standards but only have authority on their contracted property/location.

Once Allied Universal bought G4S, the contract was awarded to Strategic and the contract requirements changed from all Company Police to a mix of police and security, mainly due to staffing restrictions. During this time period the ratio between police and security started to change to mostly security.

Now the city is using Professional Police Services and Professional Security Services but are still a mixture of police and security.

The underlined issue is lack of quality personnel and lack of training. You can change companies as they have continued to do, but without a good applicant pool, each company is just hiring the same people to work in the field that worked for the previous company; they just changed uniforms. They might be changing the leadership, but the bottom line is they are still using the same personnel. If you are having issues with a company, you are most likely having issues with the personnel. Just because you change the company name on the uniform does not mean you change to personnel culture.

The shortage of personnel stems from the current political culture against police in the United States. We need to fix the anti-police culture so that more young people will start pursuing Law Enforcement as a career path. The other issue is pay; just as the police have had to increase pay to attract decent applicants, so must private police and security companies. That increase reflects in increased bids. When one company underbids another for a contract, it usually means lower pay for the security officers. There is little profit on a government contract.

For more information about obtaining superior security for your business or home, please fill out our email contact form on the CONTACT page, or CALL Excalibur Security Team today toll-free at 888-276-3348 and we will design a custom security profile to meet your needs.