No statewide regulation of security guards
To provide manicures in Colorado, nail salon workers must give state licensing officials proof of training, pass a two-part test, report any felony convictions, apply for a state license and renew that license every two years.
To work as a security guard in much of Colorado, a person doesn’t have to do any of that.
Colorado is one of nine states that do not regulate security guards or security companies, meaning there are no statewide training or hiring standards for the thousands of people who work in quasi law enforcement roles guarding buildings and people across the state.
Even when security guards are armed, they’re not required by the state to have any qualification beyond what allows them to carry the weapon as a citizen.
“It’s not a well-regulated industry at all and the training standards are varied at best,” said Paul Taylor, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Denver who studies policing and previously worked as a police officer, police trainer and, briefly, a private security guard. “Many companies have a really low level of training even though many guards have pretty regular contact with the public in an enforcement capacity.”
After a summer of protests about police and criminal justice, the fatal shooting last weekend of a demonstrator at a Denver “Patriot Rally” by an unlicensed security guard has thrust private security companies into the spotlight.
In the absence of state regulation, it’s difficult to know how many security guards are working in Colorado, what their training and qualifications are, how many times they’ve used force against someone and what discipline, if any, has been enacted against guards who break company rules. Because the guards are employed by private companies instead of a government, the public’s ability to inspect records about the actions and qualifications of guards is limited.
Licensing itself isn’t a foolproof method of avoiding risk, however, as the “Patriot Rally” shooting and the near-fatal beating of a Denver artist by licensed private security guards at Union Station show.
Denver police officers and city inspectors regularly ask for guards’ licenses and the city is always looking for ways to strengthen its oversight of guards, said Eric Escudero, spokesman for the Denver Department of Excise and Licensing.
“The goal is to hopefully prevent an instance like what happened this weekend from ever happening,” he said.
Without statewide rules, a handful of cities in Colorado enacted their own licensing process for guards or the companies that employ them.
Six of the 10 largest cities in Colorado — Aurora, Fort Collins, Lakewood, Thornton, Arvada and Centennial — do not require licensing of security guards or security companies. The four that do — Denver, Colorado Springs, Westminster and Pueblo — each have different requirements and levels of oversight.
“You hope that a silver lining of this very tragic situation that occurred is that it raises awareness of this licensing requirements and why Denver has some of the strictest rules in the nation,” Escudero said.
More than 6,500 licensed security guards currently work in Denver — a force more than four times the size of the Denver Police Department. More than 170 companies and organizations employ security guards in the city, data shows. The largest employer, Universal Protection Service, employs more than 1,300 guards.
The duties of guards in the city vary widely, from keeping an eye out for shoplifters at the mall to patrolling downtown. Guards, like police officers, often face dangerous situations and complicated decisions, Escudero said. At least two security guards have been killed on duty in Denver in the past three years.
Some much smaller towns also have licensing requirements, like Greenwood Village in Denver’s southern suburbs. Police Chief Dustin Varney personally reads every licensing application that crosses his desk. Security companies in the town of 15,700 are required to submit a list of employees, any gun being used by guards, and any cars being used for security purposes. Varney then backgrounds all the people, cars and guns.
“Anytime you are providing a service that involves security for people or property, and you are potentially allowing them to be armed with mace or a firearm, you’re putting people in position to make decisions that can have great impacts on peoples’ lives,” Varney said. “You have to vet it. I have to make sure the company is legit because it impacts the citizens that I swore oath to protect.”
Of the large Colorado cities that require licensing, only two mandate a specific number of training hours and required training topics. Colorado Springs requires eight hours of training before a guard is licensed and Denver requires 16 hours before licensing, as well as eight additional hours every year. Both cities require further training for a guard to carry a gun.
But even the 16 hours of training required by the Denver licensing office for unarmed guards — the most required in any of Colorado’s large cities — is nowhere close to the 556 hours of academy training that all Colorado law enforcement officers must complete.
“The training standards are sad, they’re deficient in every way,” Taylor said. “It’s scary.”
It’s unclear what kind of training Matthew Dolloff — the unlicensed security guard who will be charged with second-degree murder in the shooting of Lee Keltner — had. Dolloff’s family attorney has said the shooting was an act of self-defense.
Denver television station 9News contracted with security company Pinkerton to guard their journalist covering protests. Pinkerton then contracted another company, Isborn Security Services, which offered Dolloff, 30, the gig. Pinkerton did not respond to questions from The Denver Post about Dolloff’s training and 9News has not responded to requests for interviews.