Security experts cite importance of proper training

Tuesday, June 1, 1999 | 3:17 a.m.

A customer claiming he was beaten by Gold Coast hotel-casino security officers in a case with racial overtones won more than $450,000 in a court judgment last month.

The family of a man who died as the result of an altercation with security officers at the Las Vegas Club won an out-of-court settlement exceeding $1.4 million in February.

Another man, claiming he was beaten by security officers at the Golden Nugget hotel-casino, also filed a lawsuit, which is pending.

On the Strip, a current and a former female officer with Circus Circus Enterprises have sued the resort company. The women have alleged that some of their male counterparts used video surveillance equipment to spy on unspecified individuals having sex on company property.

Whether these cases indicate a growing problem is hard to say. D. Anthony Nichter, a Las Vegas security training specialist, said he knows of only 10 cases in Nevada since 1990 where a plaintiff sued a casino over a security officer issue and won either a trial judgment or out-of-court settlement.

That's a small number considering that more than 32 million tourists are expected to visit Southern Nevada this year. Metro Police do not keep statistics on altercations between casino security officers and customers.

Local security experts also say many casino officers are well trained and have the people skills to do a good job. They say that officer misconduct isn't nearly as common now as it was 20 years ago, when casino personnel had reputations as ill-trained brutes.

But Nichter and other experts, as well as local attorneys who have sued casinos, believe the gaming industry must do an even better job training its security officers.

Cliff Holder, director of corporate security for Santa Fe Gaming Corp., wants the Nevada Legislature to establish an academy to provide standardized training for casino officers and other security personnel. One reason an academy makes sense, he said, is that gaming uses more security personnel than any other industry.

"Compared to 20 years ago we're 100 percent better in terms of training, but we're on the 50-yard line and we still need to go another 50 yards," Holder said. "Nevada should set the pace and should have an academy that all security officers should have to pass (attend)."

Nichter, an instructor at UNLV and the Community College of Southern Nevada, also said he supports training guidelines but only if they're flexible enough to take into account a resort's budget and neighborhood. A large resort on the Strip, for instance, has different potential security threats than a small casino in North Las Vegas.

"The people who make up the 5,500 casino security officers in Southern Nevada, those people in the trenches and the people who supervise them, their hearts are in the right place," Nichter said. "But when you get to the management level this is where you need more enlightenment. They have to cut loose some coin and put it back into more security training."

Las Vegas attorneys Leo Flangas, Brent Bryson and Patrick Nohrden, who have represented clients against casinos, also believe casino security officers need to be better screened and trained.

"It's a private police force trained to manhandle people," said Flanges, who represented the Gold Coast patron. "There's not a lot of checks and balances to review what these people do."

Better job neededNohrden, who represents the client in the Golden Nugget case, also said casinos need to do a better job training their officers in race relations.

"I'd like to see screening so you don't have people who are psychotic being security guards," he said. "With proper screening and proper training in race relations and public relations you won't have these problems."

But Nichter and Holder, who serve as chairman and co-chairman respectively of the American Society for Industrial Security's Gaming and Wagering Protection Committee, don't buy the argument that security officers are racially insensitive.

"It is part of our training to make sure everyone is treated fairly," Holder said. "We base our response on behavior, not on race or any other factor."

Nichter said that because casino security personnel have about "100 times" as much daily contact with the public as do Metro Police they are used to dealing with a multitude of racial and ethnic groups as well as nationalities.

Practically all Las Vegas resorts hire their own security personnel, but there are no uniform training guidelines or state laws that establish minimum requirements to serve as a casino officer. All one needs is a work card from the Clark County sheriff's office, which involves a background check that includes criminal history.

Bryson, who represented the plaintiffs in the Las Vegas Club case, said he believes casino security officers should be licensed by the state.

"There need to be some minimum requirements mandated by the state," he said. "The hotel security industry is so big there needs to be a separate governing body to run it."

As Holder noted, part of the problem is that casinos all have different ideas on the levels of security they wish to provide and the amount they're willing to spend for training.

The Santa Fe hotel-casino's 80 hours of mandatory security training is among the most rigorous in the industry, double what many larger Strip resorts require. In addition to 40 hours of basic classroom instruction, Santa Fe requires specialized course work in subjects such as first aid, verbal communication skills, hazardous materials and passive restraining techniques.

In addition to the felony background checks performed by Metro, Santa Fe also looks for misdemeanors, administers drug tests and looks at the applicant's credit rating.

"If someone owes $4,000 to $5,000 a month and makes only $1,500 a month, you may not have an honest employee," Holder said. "I'm not always looking for an ex-police officer or ex-military. Those are good credentials, but I'm looking for people who are good with the public, who can go into a situation and defuse it using their verbal skills."

Once hired and trained, Santa Fe still requires its security personnel to participate in mandatory two-hour refresher courses each month. Holder estimated that a well-trained security officer can defuse 99 percent of all potential confrontations strictly through word skills or what he calls "verbal judo." He added that only about a dozen customers are permanently barred from the resort each year because of bad behavior.

"I'd rather spend 15 minutes talking to an individual than two hours with reports and getting Metro involved," he said. "We teach our officers to empathize and listen and not to cut the person off, because everyone has to vent."

Nichter, who trained security officers at the MGM Grand hotel-casino when that property opened, said training levels vary to extremes throughout the resort industry. He gave the local gaming industry an overall letter grade of B minus, with large resorts and Holder's Santa Fe at the top of the scale and small family-run operations at the bottom.

Nichter said that with certain casinos "it's a miracle they're not being sued every day."

He said the most deficient area of casino training is in the use of handcuffs.

"Most of the handcuff skills I would rate as nominal to below nominal," Nichter said. "The one opportunity when the security officer has the greatest risk of causing injury or getting injured is in a handcuff situation. It's a high-risk maneuver, but many properties have no internal training for handcuffing."

Occasional scoldingState Gaming Control Board Chairman Steve DuCharme said the board occasionally has scolded casinos whose gaming licenses were up for review in cases where security officers accosted patrons based on race. But DuCharme said the board usually doesn't discuss casino officer issues.

"Were it to come to our attention that a particular licensee had problems with security personnel we would address it," DuCharme said. "We review the overall conduct of the licensee and require them to conduct themselves accordingly."

Resort security personnel are typically a mixture of retirees with a law enforcement or military background and young people seeking a law enforcement career. Pay ranges locally from about $7 to $13 an hour depending on their experience and where they're employed.

Vietnam War combat veteran Joe Reyes, who retired as a sergeant major from the Army after 27 years of service, has spent the past five years as a security officer at the Santa Fe hotel-casino.

"I enjoy dealing with people," Reyes said. "I just enjoy when they're having fun, and you're doing things that make them want to come back to the casino. If you go home after eight hours and no one gets hurt, I'm satisfied we did our job."

Much of what Reyes does involves dealing with intoxicated or injured customers. In the case of drunks, Reyes and fellow officers are trained to talk to them without creating a ruckus.

"We try to explain that this is a 24-hour town," Reyes said. "I tell them to get some rest and then come back. The casino doesn't close so why jeopardize being thrown out of here?

"You have to treat people the way you want to be treated. Get to know the guy. Our deal is to try to keep the situation low key. If you approach people properly, they'll respond properly."

Ed Eckels, security director for Total Safety Inc. in Las Vegas and former security chief for both the Rio and Showboat resorts, said casino security officers are a lot like shopping mall guards in that they're "protecting a product."

"If you're in retail, you're looking for shoplifters," Eckels said. "In casinos they look for bucket thieves and card cheats."

The difference is that casino officers have more intense interaction with customers, he said.

"Casinos are a lot like little cities," Eckels said. "You have domestic problems with husbands and wives. You have drunks."

State statutes permit casino security officers to detain individuals "in a reasonable manner and for a reasonable length of time" when they have probable cause to believe an individual broke the law. Suspected lawbreakers are turned over to Metro Police, but security officers have no more rights than ordinary citizens.

In the 1960s many resorts began hiring former local police officers or FBI agents to run their security departments. Early on casino personnel typically wore uniforms that made them resemble law enforcement officers, and they all carried firearms.

There were times, up to the mid-1980s, when casino officers were rumored to take patrons into back alleys and beat the stuffings out of them. One case that generated considerable publicity occurred in 1985, when two winning blackjack players alleged that they suffered broken ribs and multiple contusions at the hands of Binion's Horseshoe officers. The players' civil lawsuit against the hotel eventually was settled out of court for $675,000.

Back then casinos rarely performed background checks or trained their officers. But as Holder explained "the day of the bouncer is over."

"Any company that has the philosophy of a dinosaur will end up in court," he said.

Uniforms goneMany of today's resorts have gotten rid of the security uniforms inside the casinos. The security personnel at the Santa Fe, for instance, wear maroon sports jackets and black slacks. One may still see uniformed officers outside casinos but that's because the parking lots are where violent crimes are more likely to occur. Holder said many resorts like to have a high-profile security presence outdoors for that reason.

The vast majority of resorts have also switched to unarmed security officers because they don't want to risk shooting innocent customers. At those properties only the security supervisors are armed. Meantime, liability premiums to cover wrongful death lawsuits have skyrocketed.

As Nichter observed, "who can afford a stray bullet hitting Ethel from Buffalo because she stepped into a gunfight?"

Holder agreed.

"What is the possibility of using a gun?" he said. "It's minute. Yet you have to look at the liability exposure if there was a bad shooting. On the other side it can be a deterrent. But I haven't seen any difference between having unarmed and armed officers."

If an unarmed guard sees a casino robbery, he is to contact Metro and gather as much descriptive detail as possible on the assailant without getting involved, Holder said.

"A hostage situation is not worth it," he said.

Nichter estimated that only about 10 local gaming companies, including Circus Circus Enterprises, Boyd Gaming Corp. and Binion's Horseshoe, continue to use armed security officers.

When the local resort industry suffered a rash of armed robberies in the mid-1990s the bandits didn't discriminate between properties that had armed security officers and those that didn't.

In 1993 armed bandits robbed the casino cage at the San Remo hotel-casino, but one of the robbers was shot in the leg by his own firearm when an unarmed security officer wrestled him over his gun. Three years later a would-be robber was shot to death at the Roadhouse Casino in Henderson, but that time the shot was fired by an armed security officer. Henderson police later determined the shooting was justified.

Five lives lost

Five casino security officers in Nevada have lost their lives in the line of duty in the past 10 years, Nichter said. The last one was in October, when 24-year-old security officer Everett Hicks was killed at the Silver Saddle Saloon, a small casino at 2501 E. Charleston Blvd.

Police believe the shooter was a sniper who may have acted in retaliation for a September shooting at the saloon in which customer Jose Morales was killed by security officer Claudio Piedras. Morales, who had been ejected from the saloon, reportedly returned later and accelerated his car at Piedras. The security officer reacted by shooting Morales in the head.

Another casino security officer lost his life in February 1998, when 44-year-old Elroy Arokium of the Tropicana hotel-casino was shot repeatedly in the back while working a private party at the resort's Sports Pavilion. Police believed the suspect fled to Mexico.

Eckels said casinos generally hire their own officers rather than contract with private security firms because they want to maintain control over their security operations. Though a private security firm could save casinos money, Eckels conceded that his industry still suffers from "rent a cop" stereotypes.

"A lot of it is perception," Eckels said. "We know we can save them money and give them the same quality of service but it's a tough sell."

The only times casinos normally use private security companies is to augment their own staff for special events, such as crowd control at concerts and boxing matches.

One of the rare exceptions is Los Angeles-based Worldwide Security Associates Inc., which provides the officers at the Holiday Inn/Boardwalk hotel-casino.

Company chairman Mike Ferrua said Worldwide Security made its inroads when it provided the temporary security force during the start-up of the MGM Grand hotel-casino. The hotel eventually created its own security force and hired away many of Ferrua's employees, but Worldwide Security's reputation on the Strip was enhanced by its work at the MGM.

Ferrua agreed with Eckels that the private security industry still faces stigmas.

"It's going to have to take a concerted effort by our industry to overcome that," Ferrua said. "But there are companies like ours that are making a concerted effort."

His company prefers to hire individuals with law enforcement or military experience "because that provides the discipline you look for," Ferrua said. He said Worldwide Security also uses psychological profiles so that the officers they place in casinos are those who tend to work well with the public.

He said many private firms offer the same health and dental benefits as do casinos, and that his company provides a significant amount of training in areas such as customer service and first aid. With the casino industry continuing to expand, the growing demand for competent security officers is such that, Ferrua predicts, more resorts will turn to companies such as his for help.

"We think we can provide a product of equal quality as a casino," he said.

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