Security Guards Should Be Given More Defensive Tools
Recently, there’s been tremendous indignation over the case of a Caucasian man mocking, tripping and punching a 60-year-old security guard at Roxy Square.
The video, which went viral earlier, has since been taken down.
Sequential screenshots of the video
In light of the incident, social activist Sukhdev Singh Gill, through Facebook, urged authorities including the Union of Security Employees Singapore (USE) and the Ministry for Home Affairs (MHA) to investigate the matter properly and find ways to protect our security officers from such abuses.
Arming security guards
According to Mr Sukhdev, private security officers used to be armed with batons in the past. Now, however, all security officers except licensed armed one are prohibited from holding any kind of weapon.
He suggests, for the self-defence of the personnel, that “a smaller voltage laser gun would suffice.”
Furthermore, many security guards are often older and work alone. This make them especially vulnerable, as in the case at Roxy Square, to unreasonably aggressive visitors.
Request MHA to look into the matter
The social activist concluded his Facebook post by imploring MHA to look into the matter and consider allowing security officers to wield batons and even tasers.
Of course, these might raise all sorts of other issues, if for example, a security officer misuses the baton to beat someone up.
On the other hand, a taser gun would have easily put that rambunctious man at Roxy Square in his place — and also saved the old security officer a great deal of pain and trouble.
Do you think security officers should be allowed to wield weapons? Let us know in the comments.
Featured image from Facebook.Â