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Could not believe my eyes this morning when I was riding the DART rail to work. I saw a uniform Security woman get on the train with an old rusty .38 on her hip in an Uncle Mike’s holster. I could see the barrel sticking out the bottom of holster and it was completely rusted. She was sitting in an aisle seat with the gun out in the aisle and she was listening to an MP3 player LOUD. Anybody could have walked up behind her and yanked the gun out of her holster before she could have done anything.

Some people are unbelievable.

Just from what you have told us ,she is getting a FREE RIDE in more ways than one.
I would express my concern to management and have them follow up on this.

Some LEOs are just as sheepish as the people they "dont protect".
I experienced about the same thing but not as bad several weeks ago.
Went to Son in Laws Graduation at SFA & was appalled at the lack of attention to crowd by the EXTRA SECURITY promiced right after Va Tech.
There were many uniformed PD & also Campus Police & unarmed security.
I saw one Lady Nacogdoches PD officer & 2 Game wardens that were really "doing their job" of being observant & politely greeting the crowd.
Others talked & only went to respond to comotion or a call on the radio.

Back when I was a kid, there was a local story about Chicago police officers who'd been ducking annual qualifications finally being made to report to the range and shoot the course.

A sergeant at the local precinct had a problem, because his service revolver was rusted shut - completely non-functional.

Made me feel I was being protected so well . . .

You have to wonder what the conditions are in their homes/offices if a gun is able to rust shut.

The rust issue is not my concern. It is the fact that an earpiece or headphone is distracting the guard. I would initiate a company policy against such activity. Maybe an undercover type job evaluation is in order.
I would report this to DART.

TIN BENDER wrote:The rust issue is not my concern. It is the fact that an earpiece or headphone is distracting the guard. I would initiate a company policy against such activity. Maybe an undercover type job evaluation is in order.
I would report this to DART.

Why would you report it to DART and not to the security company? It is legal for the security officer to use DART to get to and from work.

To clarify. It was not a Dart officer. It was a armed Security guard and she had a patch on her arm but it was on the opposite side from where I was sitting so I could not read it.

Anytime you can hear the music from the headphones and they are mouthing the words to the music you know they are not paying attention to their surroundings.

Carrying a weapon in the condition that hers was in there is no way I would trust her to protect anything of mine.

chew--- You are correct. I just assumed the security officer was a Dart employee. My mistake.

It is my understanding that off-duty security guards are not supposed to be carrying openly. Not sure if that applies to commuting.

Last year I had a rent house vacated by some deadbeat tenants. The husband was a security guy for the Dallas Federal Building. A week after they vacated the house he and his wife showed up and started taking things out of the house. A neighbor called me and I drove over there. The husband was loading stuff into their van as fast as he could, still in uniform and carrying. He wisely decided to leave, but it could have been a bad situation.
Found out later he was carrying illegally at that time. I should have reported him to his supervisor.

Rex B wrote:It is my understanding that off-duty security guards are not supposed to be carrying openly. Not sure if that applies to commuting.

Last year I had a rent house vacated by some deadbeat tenants. The husband was a security guy for the Dallas Federal Building. A week after they vacated the house he and his wife showed up and started taking things out of the house. A neighbor called me and I drove over there. The husband was loading stuff into their van as fast as he could, still in uniform and carrying. He wisely decided to leave, but it could have been a bad situation.
Found out later he was carrying illegally at that time. I should have reported him to his supervisor.

As a security officer you can carry to work, at work, and home from work only. So if the lady is using DART to get to or from work, she is legal.

I guess this a bit OT to the specific incident that started the thread, but HankB's story reminded me of a lesson leaned that is more related to the concept of having the proper mindset about why you are carrying a gun...of which it appears that security guard had no clue about.

Several defensive handgun classes I've had emphasize verifying the status of your gun each time it has been out of your possession, i.e. in the safe, in the bedside drawer overnight, whatever. Check magazine and chamber check. And, of course, practicing regularly.

To illustrate the importance of these concepts, one of them related the example of a police officer who attended his annual qualification, drew his revolver, and found that it would not budge. Trigger would not move, hammer could not be cocked, cylinder would not even open. Upon examination, it was found the revolver was full of super-glue. Further investigation revealed his ex-wife had sabotaged his gun during divorce proceedings -- six months previously. The officer never checked his gun, much less practiced with it, and had been running around with it super-glued the whole time.

elb

Kinda reminds me of the Miami CSI episodes a couple of years ago where Speed got into trouble when his semi auto pistol malfunctioned during a shootout. When his superiors told him to clean his gun, he said he would. A few episodes later he and Horatio enter a jewelry shop and get into a shootout with robbers. Speed takes one or two in the chest because his gun would not fire. He never cleaned it.

Lesson to be learned............... clean and take care of your weapons!! You never know when or where you will be needing them.

Joe

We had a career criminal come to the Academy in the early 80's. I do not know how true it is today, but he said when he walked into a bank for the first time he would look at the grips of the officer. If the officer had "stock" grips it was his opinion the officer was not a constant shooter and had very little training. Don't be fooled the criminals train also.

carlson1 wrote:We had a career criminal come to the Academy in the early 80's. I do not know how true it is today, but he said when he walked into a bank for the first time he would look at the grips of the officer. If the officer had "stock" grips it was his opinion the officer was not a constant shooter and had very little training. Don't be fooled the criminals train also.