The 'One-Two Punch' of Creating Safety

I invite you to become part of the 'one-two punch' of creating safety: mobilized private citizens and maximized private security.

As a private citizen you often witness crime or worse, are one of its victims. Unfortunately, the government can't assign a police officer to be your bodyguard.

Fortunately, you can mobilize to better guard your body and property.

I've been a mobilized private citizen since the second decade of the 1980s crack cocaine invasion. The nineties were a time of mobilization or capitulation to unheard-of violence and disorder in neighborhoods like mine.

Being mobilized however, doesn't mean living in a high crime area.

It means examining threats around you and deciding your comfort zone in addressing them. Threats obviously vary from place to place.

Please consider:

1. Community or Neighborhood Watch.

Quietly observing your surroundings and networking with like minds is an unobtrusive mobilization method. It lessens retaliation from subjects engaged in suspicious or criminal activity.

My late maternal grandmother had an informal neighborhood watch network of fellow widows. Any odd behavior outside was immediately called in and conferred upon.

Juicy gossip was a fringe benefit.

If 911 was contacted beforehand, the widow making the call alerted her peers or me.

I upgraded standard neighborhood or community watch practices and offered my services as a free coordinator who gathered concerns from scared seniors in my neighborhood association.

I forwarded their concerns to the local police precinct for follow-up investigation or visibility patrols. We faced dealers occupying front porches, open air drug markets, gun battles on once-safe blocks and addicts stealing anything that wasn't nailed down.

My last mobilization of community or neighborhood watch is something I call 'power watch' where I not only observe but sometimes challenge suspicious subjects where I live. I spent 2025 in a running battle with trespassers and loud loiterers who frequented, and some employed by, a bar next door whose new operator attracted a bad crowd.

I took pictures and video of these violators and forwarded them to an often-apathetic district commander. Her attitude was I was supposed to accept such violations as part of my 'culture.'

Trespassing and loitering aren't my 'culture', a point made clear several times weekly last year.

Additionally, I'd step on the porch of this former residence and disperse trespassers, sometimes repeatedly in one night. Outside of stable suburbs and rural areas, this is how boundaries are flagrantly disrespected.

2. Citizens Patrol

A step beyond my 'power watch' model of observing and challenging suspects on or near where I live is mobilizing to personally address community members concerns.

What became my 'Borrow A Brother' volunteer safety escorts for female friends started with accompanying my late maternal grandmother to the doctor and other visits where I'd help her walk.

I proudly remember running errands for my late maternal grandfather who'd ask me to 'be his legs' when rheumatoid arthritis became too painful.

I'd also do the same for a neighbor across the street who I knew most of my life. On two memorable occasions I sat on her porch with my shotgun during a lengthy summer blackout and climbed a fire department ladder to open the front door after her alarm system detected an unseen fire in the attic.

As above examples illustrate, citizens patrol for me is more low key than miltia -style formations who open carry rifles to deter crime. I don't oppose activists willing to legally provide such strong visual deterrent.

It's simply a matter of different tactics to achieve the same goal.

My preferred citizens patrol method is riding along with female friends at night concerned about doing deliveries for apps alone, visiting post offices after hours or where I pump gas for them while keeping watch for trouble.

I also check on homeless folks, one of whom I'd give his favorite drink: Coca-Cola and food.

Lately, I've mobilized to help a female friend with a recently replaced knee who contacted me late last year. I accompany her to doctor's visits, grocery shopping, get packages off of her porch before porch pirates do and walk her 13-year-old dog who I nicknamed 'the terror of the underworld’.

You'll notice this citizens patrol approach doesn't lead to viral confrontations seen over the years. It does provide 'free security' and support for working class 'everyday VIPs' who can't afford bodyguards and personal aides.

Mobilized private citizens are the first part of the 'one-two punch' of creating safety.

Next is...

3. Private Security

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there were one million security guards in 2024 and 1.1 million in 2025, quite a growth spurt.

As a security industry advocate, it pains me to report the industry still ignores a crying need for maximized private security professionals to secure public spaces until relieved by law enforcement.

Company owners, management and condescending clients leave private protectors underpaid and under pressure long before incidents occur.

My vision of maximized private security starts by treating it like a career instead of professional purgatory. Security jobs with good pay, benefits and upward mobility are few and far between. It explains a turnover rate as high as 400% according to the Google search engine.

It boggles my mind how people pay security professionals low wages yet expect high performance.

Another retention buster are site policies more worried about lawsuits and bad publicity, real concerns to be sure, than maintaining order in a market where disproportionate violence and disorder are more common after society ended pandemic shutdowns.

Maximized private security would see well paid professionals empowered to maintain order, an added benefit given a disturbing trend.

Police department staffing shortages still continue and with it a growing need for maximizing private security to address broader public safety issues.

I see New Orleans Downtown Development District (DDD) using maximized, armed private security to walk downtown sidewalks and patrol the business district in marked vehicles. This is in addition to their unarmed public safety rangers who can contact law enforcement on radios and a roving off duty police officer detail.

Two prime examples of maximized private security which evolved this century are the 'anti terrorism officer' or (ATO) model developed by Critical Intervention Services (CIS) in 2004 to secure electric power plants and related critical infrastructure. The other are casino 'SWAT' teams comprised of mostly former law enforcement officers activated after the 2017 Mandalay Bay mass shooting.

Maximized private security has also guarded nuclear power plants and research labs for decades.

My hope is seeing private security maximizing itself to address active or mass shooters at festivals, malls, shopping centers, bars and places of worship where maximal protection is sorely needed until police arrive.

This completes my suggested 'one-two punch' of creating safety by mobilizing our largest protective resource: private citizens and private security.

Nadra Enzi aka Cap Black does 'Borrow A Brother' volunteer safety escorts for female friends and worthy causes in New Orleans.