20 items or less, reserved seats and other house rules

One of the perks of police work is that there's usually a lot of overtime available. Many businesses and event promoters like to hire police officers for extra security. This is good for many reasons. A uniformed police officer's great for stopping problems before they begin. For example, if you have a theater that has a lot of rowdy teens causing problems, simply hiring a cop to walk around will calm things down dramatically. If there's a serious problem, you have a cop available immediately instead of having to wait for a response to a 911 call.

If an employer hires police with the intent of having them keep the peace and deter crime, everyone's usually happy with the deal (except troublemakers). Problems arise when employers don't understand the limitations of the police. When a cop tells someone to do something, that carries great weight with people. It's assumed that if a police officer gives someone an order, that order has the force of law behind it. For that reason, my department has a clear policy that officers working an overtime assignment can not enforce house rules.

To clarify, if Wal-Mart hires a cop to deter theft and arrest shoplifters, that is completely fine and within policy. If a Wal-Mart manager also expects the cop to stop people from getting into the express line with more than 20 items, that is considered enforcing house rules. Since I doon't think it is illegal to get in line with over 20 items, there is not much I can do about it.

I've been in situations where an employer thinks they hired you as their personal enforcer and insists that you enforce all kinds of crazy house rules. I know of several officers who felt obligated to do this and ended up in serious trouble from internal affairs complaints of violating people's rights.

Some employers understand this once you explain it and that is the end of the problem. Others get all huffy and accuse you of being paid for nothing. I always try to explain that while I can't enforce house rules, the employees can ask the violator to comply and if they refuse, the employer has the option of asking that person to leave their place if business. If the violation refuses to leave, then I have legal authority to arrest them for trespassing.

I remember once when I was working an overtime assignment at a concert. There were a few seating areas that were marked as reserved. As the concert got crowded, I noticed a few folks starting to move into the reserved area. The concert promoter came up to me in a tizzy and demanded that I start checking tickets and keep people out of those seats. I tried to explain to him that I couldn't do that but I would be happy to standby as he told people to move. This didn't satisfy him one bit and he started ranting about how he could have hired three security guards for the price of hiring me and that security guards did as they were told.

Apparently I wasn't the first officer he had approached that night and he proceeded to tell me that we were all lazy and not working out. The conversation went downhill and all the overtime officers were released early. I went home and heard the next day that a drunken fight had broken out later in the evening and several people got injured. The concert people ended up being sued for not providing adequate security.

Just some things to keep in mind if you ever want to hire police for extra peace of mind.