As the nation’s two major political parties prepare to hold their conventions this month following what has been, by most accounts, one of the ugliest and most divisive primary seasons in recent memory, private security firms will also be readying to provide protection services to a number of high-profile individuals and corporations as they descend on Cleveland and Philadelphia over the next two weeks. While the Secret Service and various other law enforcement agencies will control security in and around the various venues expected to be attended by the presumptive nominees from each party, independent contractors will largely bear the responsibility of keeping other dignitaries out of harm’s way.
Joseph Sordi, managing director of New York-based Strategic Security Corp., is perhaps as well-versed as anyone in the country on what these security firms and their employees will be faced with as his firm provided security services to Fortune 500 companies and lobbying groups during both the Republican and Democratic conventions in 2004 and 2008. According to Sordi, while security professionals will have all of the usual concerns – credentialing, access, traffic, etc. – to deal with, the protests that have erupted across the country in response to recent police killings in Louisiana and Minnesota, have added another layer of complexity to what was already expected to be large demonstrations at the conventions.
“That is really changing the landscape of how to secure one of these types of events and how to handle security for your clients as they go to and from these different types of special events,” Sordi explains.
In addition to providing security for people and groups attending the conventions, Sordi says his firm has also been retained by organizations with locations in and around the convention venues themselves in the past to ensure their normal business operations were not significantly impacted.
“That involved us working with various local police departments and getting permits and licenses so we could control the front of these locations to ensure that no group could come and protest directly in front of a location,” Sordi says. “We kind of created some stand-off distance so that at least if they want to protest like everybody has a right to according to the First Amendment, they could do so in a manner that doesn’t affect operations of the location and enables everybody to participate and get their message across.”
However, Sordi says there is a reluctance on the part of police and other law enforcement agencies nowadays to confront protesters when they do cross the line from holding a peaceful demonstration into disrupting the operation of businesses and civil services, which only makes the jobs of security professionals all the more difficult.
“That allows passive civil disobedience, such as marches, sit-ins and human chains, all these types of protests are able to go on for quite some time and these are the protests that impact traffic around the area, create congestion, block entrances to businesses and really are very difficult to deal with from a security practitioner’s perspective,” he says. “A security practitioner doesn’t have law enforcement power, so it is not like he can turn around and say, ‘If you don’t move you’re going to be arrested.’ We’ve really gone from playing checkers to playing chess and having to think 10 steps ahead to never allow it to get to that point.”
For example, where traditionally if there was a demonstration that blocked the entrance to a certain location, Sordi says security could call police and they would usher them away. Now, however, Sordi says you may wait anywhere from three to five hours before police respond to that same call because of this reluctance.
“There are going to issue warnings and warnings, they are going to draw lines in the sand and those lines are going to be crossed and then that line will be moved again. If you didn’t prepare properly, you’re basically going to be caught short,” Sordi says.
Despite this new paradigm in how police engage demonstrators, Sordi emphasizes that coordinating efforts with law enforcement should be a top priority for any security contractor providing services during an event of this nature. “That type of coordination has to occur on a daily basis,” Sordi says.
Due to the polarizing nature of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump’s candidacies, Sordi believes that confrontations between their supports and their detractors are inevitable and that it’s the job of security professionals to plan for these hostilities in advance. “We have to try and get both parties; if they are pro-Hillary supporters to try and get them in one area and get pro-Trump supporters in another to limit those outbursts,” Sordi adds.
Regardless of the candidates or their party affiliations, Sordi says the security challenges remain the same.
“You can see from all of the different marches and protests going on… these movements that you see in all of these mass protests across the nation, they’re just as volatile if it’s at a Republican convention or a Democratic convention. They’re basically all the same. There has been violence at Democratic events as well as Republican events,” Sordi adds. “Obviously, this is just making the security professional’s job that much harder because now coupled with this mass, civil disobedience type rallies, there is always the threat of terrorism that you have to prepare for. Since the 2008 conventions, there has really been a dramatic change in the landscape of new emerging threats due to this mass civil disobedience movement for anti-police, Black Lives Matter and the wage movement that has really thrown a fly in the ointment as far as rolling out quintessential security plans for these events.”
