The Police Can't Do It Alone- Businesses Have To Do Their PartMILWAUKEE, WI- Every week I read stories about shootings at bars and gas stations, beatings in business parking lots, sexual assaults in apartment buildings and a variety of violent actions perpetrated upon our citizenry. Try as they may the police cannot be everywhere and be the sole solution to the surge of violence and assaults that permeate our society. We live in an era of insecurity where citizens are clamoring for and demanding security. We are willing to wait through long lines at airports to be screened by the TSA and demand that our government increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the no fly list. There is a national debate about the security of our borders and the dangers of criminal elements illegally entering our country. While all these security issues make national headlines we as citizens are much more likely to be killed on the streets of our cities, assaulted in a neighborhood grocery store parking lot, beaten in our local bar or mugged at an ATM machine making a cash withdrawal than harmed by an international terrorist. Recently our firm, Hausmann-McNally, S.C., has taken up the cause of premises security and has successfully resolved cases where individuals were unnecessarily harmed as a result of inadequate and insufficient security at local businesses. In an effort to assist local businesses in planning and instituting proper security to protect their patrons and visitors, Attorney Charles J. Hausmann of Hausmann-McNally, S.C. in conjunction with security consultant Jon C. Paul, CPP (Board Certified in Security Management) developed a security checklist and outline to assist business owners meet their security responsibilities to keep their patrons as safe as the premises reasonably permit. Businesses should consider the following suggestions as a good start in helping to keep patrons safe in these turbulent-violent times, Attorney Charles J. Hausmann recommends:
There is no single measure or strategy that in and of itself provides adequate and significant security. Rather, it is a comprehensive and integrated security plan that identifies threats and risks and employs a variety of countermeasures and strategies commensurate with those threats and risks that are needed to create an environment that does not invite criminal or inappropriate activities. Business owners who advertise, invite and solicit customers and patrons to visit their place of business and spend their hard earned money have a responsibility to know the dangers and threats of the neighborhood and their premises to adequately and appropriately provide security to protect their patrons from reasonably anticipated risks of harm. |