SAN DIEGO — In a culture plagued by mass shootings, private security guards work the front lines with little fanfare.
On average, they make $18 an hour in the United States. Many are required to provide their own body armor.
More than 1.2 million private security personnel are nearly twice the number of the country’s estimated 700,000 police officers. Their sometimes vague or questionable presence at banks, hospitals, schools, retail stores, apartment complexes and municipal buildings made them objects of ridicule, as in the 2009 film “Paul Blart: Mall Cop.”
A security guard stands Feb. 2 at an entrance of the gym at Greece Athena High School in Rochester, New York.
“Security officers can be invisible until the moment it matters most,” said Mark Hjelle, CEO of Protos Security, a security firm headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut. “You’re staying vigilant for the one moment when someone’s coming into a building, and that’s a very difficult thing to do.”
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States like Louisiana, Maryland and Pennsylvania push for laws to enhance security guards’ safety, training and legal protections. New York City, where about 60,000 private security officers are employed, this year passed the Aland Etienne Safety and Security Act guaranteeing better wages, benefits and time off for them; the act is named after a security guard killed in July while guarding the lobby of a Park Avenue office building during a mass shooting.
“Security guards are true first-responders,” said Robert C. Smith, CEO of Nightlife Security Consultants, a San Diego-based security training program focused on the hospitality industry. “Who’s on the scene when a stabbing or a shooting takes place? They don’t often get the limelight. But they’re there day in and day out, and their No. 1 priority is to keep you safe.”
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, while security guards experience injury rates comparable to other jobs, their fatality rate is more than double that of the average employee. Assaults are most often the reason, with most occurring in evening and early morning hours.
A security guard at the New York Stock Exchange checks employees for proper identification Sept. 17, 2001, as they wait to enter the building after Wall Street and the stock exchanges reopened following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Nightclub security guards, for instance, often face volatile situations. On May 10, Dominique Coleman, 38, a security guard at a club in Fort Worth, Texas, was shot and killed when he confronted patrons outside, three days after 28-year-old security guard Jordan Jones was shot and killed after breaking up a fight at a bar in Acworth, Georgia.
In October, security guard Amos Gary, 54, was among four people killed in a shooting outside a bar and grill on St. Helena Island in South Carolina.
Manny Marquez, Nightlife Security Consultants' chief operating officer, said the role of security guards is sometimes underappreciated. “Security operations for a hospitality venue are often at the bottom of the priority list,” he said.
He noted, "Security guards are basically a line-item on a profit-loss statement, and they don’t get the attention they deserve.”
A security guard keeps an eye on a media tour March 19 at the Anduril Arsenal-1 drone production facility outside Columbus, Ohio.
For some security guards, pay barely covers needs
With police retention and recruitment perennial issues for law enforcement, businesses and municipalities such as Portland, Oregon, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, turn to private security to fill the gap, according to a study by researchers at Duke University and the University of Chicago.
Nearly three-fourths of security guards work in investigation and security services, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said, with many others in retailers, hospitals and schools. They also provide a crucial presence at arts and sports venues, casinos, banks, bars and nightclubs.
Their average wages are about half of police officers, according to the bureau, often without the accompanying pensions and legal protections.
Wages vary widely. An Allied Universal armed officer position in Chicago for veterans and retired law enforcement starts at $28 per hour. An Arrow Security posting at a Connecticut synagogue starts at $55 per hour.
In the Bay Area, 80% of private security guards don’t earn enough to meet basic living needs, according to a study released in April by the University of California, Berkeley. The state’s private security guards earn $20 an hour on average; some make as little as $14.85 per hour, and nearly half are considered low-wage workers.
The Wyndham Grand Hotel is seen in downtown Oklahoma City, where security guard SunJun July was killed in a Jan. 11 shooting.
In the line of fire
Reports suggest the presence of security guards in public spaces may deter crime, but most don’t carry weapons and lack a police officer’s ability to issue citations or make arrests.
Unarmed guards still can pay the ultimate price. Among the victims in the last two years:
- February : SunJun July, 22, working the overnight security shift at an Oklahoma City hotel while saving up for dental school, was killed when a pistol was fired between fighting teens he’d escorted out of the lobby.
- April 2025: Eddie Shed, 39, a deacon and head of security at a church in Gulfport, Mississippi, was shot and killed while intervening in a domestic dispute after a church gathering.
- February 2025: Ivan Diaz Jr., a nightclub security guard in Allentown, Pennsylvania, was shot and killed while trying to deescalate an altercation in the club.
- January 2025: Jesus Loera, 45, was killed while preventing an armed person from entering the Honduran consulate in Doraville, Georgia.
In Buffalo, New York, security guard Aaron Salter Jr., 55, was armed when danger arrived at the Tops supermarket where he worked on May 14, 2022.
The retired police officer was walking a customer outside when an 18-year-old White supremacist inspired by the perpetrator of the March 2019 massacre of 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, approached the store with a semiautomatic rifle. Salter engaged the gunman, then ran inside to warn customers before he was shot and killed.
Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia praised Salter for giving staff and customers inside “precious seconds to escape."
Amin Abdullah, a father of eight and longtime security guard at the Islamic Center of San Diego, was killed May 18 while confronting two gunmen who opened fire at the mosque.
In California, Amin Abdullah decided to become a security guard after the Christchurch massacre. The archery enthusiast and father of eight took a job at the Islamic Center of San Diego.
On May 18, when two gun-wielding extremist teens also apparently driven by the Christchurch killings rushed past the center’s security checkpoint, Abdullah opened fire, radioing teachers amid the melee to lock their doors and get the school’s 140 students into hiding places.
Abdullah forced the skirmish outside before he was shot and killed. The classrooms were empty when the shooters reentered the building, and they fled before taking their own lives.
San Diego police Chief Scott Wahl said Abdullah's “actions were heroic.”
The attack prompted religious and advocacy groups to call for increased protections at places of worship, which found such approaches work.
In December 2019, two volunteer security members of the West Freeway Church of Christ in suburban Fort Worth, Texas, shot and killed a man with a shotgun who killed two people in a crowded church.
In June 2025, armed security guards at CrossPointe Community Church in suburban Detroit shot and disarmed a 31-year-old man in tactical gear who attacked the church.
