Employees at the private security firm hired by a group of Magnolia residents to patrol the neighborhood have had extensive run-ins with regular law enforcement — as suspected troublemakers, not peacekeepers, according to journalist Erica C. Barnett. On her blog, The C Is for Crank, she reveals, among other things, that the owner of Central Protection pled guilty in 2013 to a misdemeanor stemming from an alleged 2013 assault and in 2010 to carrying a concealed gun without a license.
While Seattle at a whole is trying to reform its police practices, the use of private security could raise new questions about the overall treatment of members of the public going about their lives. As Crosscut's David Kroman wrote earlier this month, there's no requirement for the security guards to work to police standards. And a police spokesperson tells Barnett that the records she found for a number of the employees would likely disqualify them from city consideration as police officers.
It's not clear how much residents of wealthy neighborhoods may care about such details: Barnett notes that residents in Queen Anne and some other neighborhoods are considering similar security arrangements.
