Safety and security guards: What is missing?
Two private security guards Robert Ejumu and Moses Okedi attached to Saracen (U) Ltd being led from the house where their colleague was shot and killed following an argument on May 17, 2023. PHOTO/ JOSEPH OMOLLO
What you need to know:
- More needs to be done to bring to order this type of workforce and service, which is desired by many, into line. If not, we will continue to see so many needless shootings happen and very sadly, many deaths as well.
The following are the headlines of four stories that the Monitor published in the month of May:
Security guard survives lynching after shooting boda boda cyclist, Another security guard shoots self-dead in Kampala, Another security guard shoots colleague dead, Security guard shoots colleague dead in Makindye.
The month of June has hardly arrived and another fatal shooting by a security guard has happened.
Yesterday, the Daily Monitor website carried a headline about a UCU student shot dead by a security guard, telling of yet another tragedy.
The details of that story and the others show a similar pattern.
The security guard was upset for reasons sometimes known and sometimes unknown and as the quarrel or argument escalated, the guard shot at the victim.
Sometimes the victim is a person well-known to them (including fellow guards), and other times it is not.
Sometimes the shootings have happened at their places of duty, other times at the place of their residence. Sometimes it has been in self-defense and other times it has not.
The pattern seems to show that the guards involved are not aware of the dangerous power they possess once they are armed with guns.
It also shows that they are easily angered, and are not trained on how to deal with unarmed people they disagree with.
This leads us back to the questions this publication and others have been asking about the private security firms.
What kind of training are these guards given when it comes to managing people they disagree with at the workplace?
What support are they provided in case they find themselves in an escalating situation with someone confronting them? What background checks are done to ensure those hired are fit for the job psychologically?
After the tragedies have occurred, what steps do the firms take to ensure that this does not happen again within their firm?
Do they in any way condole and provide support and any sort of compensation to the family of the deceased? Who keeps them accountable?
The security guards are meant to make the place where they are on duty feel safe. People are meant to feel protected around them.
Unfortunately when we start to see guards shooting as soon as a confrontation avails itself, we begin to question how secure we are.
More needs to be done to bring to order this type of workforce and service, which is desired by many, into line. If not, we will continue to see so many needless shootings happen and very sadly, many deaths as well.
