What Does Safety Mean to You?

“If you don’t have the actual police force on the street, but you have privatized security, that’s still having a police state. I mean, the uniform is different. The ability to do certain things or enforce certain things are different, but the emotional feeling, the response that you get in the immediate, positive or negative, from the people that are seeing it, it’s the same.” 

– Damian Bunting

When I moved to Portland this fall, I was immediately struck by the number of private security guards. Outside the Burgerville, the CVS, the shops downtown–they all had their guy (usually a guy) at the front door. While doing anti-surveillance work in New Orleans for a few years, I came upon the term “security theater”, used to describe the way the guise of things like cameras, uniformed officers, and the presence of policing allegedly add to the feeling of safety in a place, if not actually reducing harm. In fact, the root of the word “security”, transitioning from Latin “se cura” to English around the 16th century, literally means the absence of anxiety – not the presence of safety. I saw security guards as another prop in the theater of safety, and I was curious how they understood their role.

 While researching private security in Portland, I came across Portland security guard Damian Bunting’s YouTube channel. He recorded and posted his day-to-day interactions, handing out cigarettes and pointing people to resources while on duty. I don’t believe that more police and surveillance make people safe, yet I was intrigued by the way he seemed to be an outreach worker as well as a security guard. I reached out to Damian and he graciously agreed to discuss with me the state of private security and policing in Portland, his vision of safety, and how change happens. I felt engaged but challenged while conversing about a topic that the two of us see differently–there are many things I wish I would have asked that I felt unable to at the time, and also many points of connection and agreement. I hope to speak with him again. This interview has been compiled from two separate conversations and edited for length and clarity.

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Lou Blumberg: What kind of security do you do? What are your hours?

Damian Bunting: I do all kinds, everything from retail to patrol, anything from your run of the mill security all the way to a very law enforcement-esque type of security, which is what I’m doing right now. When I worked retail downtown, the shifts were 16 hour shifts. We would start at 7am and we would get off at 11pm.

Lou: That’s wild.

Damian: Yeah. I’m currently working for a company where I’m doing 12 hour shifts, generally 6am to 6pm. 

Lou: That’s still a pretty long day. I’m really curious about your YouTube channel because, as I mentioned, I’m studying art and social practice and I see your YouTube channel as a work of art, in many ways. I wonder if you see it that way. What drove you to create that? It’s such a wealth of information and it’s so prolific. It looks like you post at least a couple times a week, right? I’m curious about that and about what drove you to share your experiences.

Damian: The reason why I started it is because I really enjoy what I do. When I would talk to other security guards, especially people who are working in a completely different capacity, maybe they’re just sitting in a parking lot at some sort of shack or something or maybe they’re handing out passes or keys or something like that, they’re not doing a lot of the stuff that we’re doing here in Portland. They felt really inadequate about what they were doing, and they would say, “I’m going to try and get a job with the police department so that I can do more.” Most people were working in security because either they didn’t have anything else to do or they just needed a job at the moment and they fell into it. And I heard that and thought, what a waste! Because so many people are good at security, and here in Portland, we have 30,000 of us, we have a huge, powerful voting bloc and a powerful aspect of the workforce, but no one gives security guards a voice. No one thinks of private security guards as first responders, even though they are. No one gives any credit or credence to what we do. Most people think of security guards like Paul Blart and they make fun of them and they make fun of the industry.

I wanted people to know, what you do matters. What you bring to the table is important. And the only way to do that was to highlight it. So I’m like, I’m going to start doing that. It’s been received well. And I hope that it gives people a little bit of pride in the industry, which is ultimately the goal. 

The company I’m with, we’re working on a concept for a show. We’re talking about all the stuff that you and I are talking about right now on the street. It’s almost like an episode of Cops where I’m interacting with people on the street. I think that we have a great opportunity to kind of change people’s approach to doing security.

Lou: How did you get into the security field to begin with?

Damian: I was in the military. I did six years in the Air Force, and I’ve worked in various aspects of law enforcement. But to be quite honest with you, in a nutshell, how I interact with people like you saw on my YouTube channel and why you reached out, that more compassionate approach I take…that was not something that law enforcement wanted over the last twenty years. I worked in a county jail, I worked in a state prison. In every area where I worked, I was told, “Hey, you’re not these people’s friends. You’re not here to hear about their problems. If they don’t want to listen, you make them.” Every time that I got myself involved in a law enforcement position, it didn’t feel right. Because that’s just not who I am. 

I tell people private security’s like being a nurse as opposed to being a doctor. You have a direct impact. You’re the one that’s there when something happens. You’re the one that’s there in the moment that people need help. And I don’t like politics and bureaucracy when it comes to helping people. I really don’t appreciate the fact that law enforcement officers, whenever they feel that they are being slighted or that people are asking too much of them, they can withhold service. And that happens here in Portland. During the whole George Floyd situation, they just stopped responding. They didn’t like [the progressive prosecutor Mike] Schmidt, they didn’t like [progressive city commissioner Jo Ann] Hardesty, and so the police took the stance, “if you want to criticize us and not give us more resources, then we just won’t respond and we’ll see how you guys like it.” That’s why private security exploded, because ultimately the people said, “we’ll just hire a private company to come out and deal with it and we don’t have to be involved in politics.”

Lou: It’s interesting to hear you mention that private security ballooned during the beginning of the pandemic and the George Floyd protests. I wonder sometimes if private security is more palatable to people in the city than regular law enforcement because of those protests. 

Damian: When the George Floyd protest started, and the calls for transparency and accountability were getting louder, we saw a lot of police departments across the country who took their ball and went home, instead of them taking that bull by the horns and saying, “let’s hit reset and let’s change the way that we’re doing things.” So when you ask the question is private security more palatable, it is. Here in Portland, there are certain places where they say, look, we have to address the homeless issue, we have to address the mental illness issue, but we don’t want people showing up with guns and dealing with that issue. They can hire a private security company and say part of our contract with you, no firearms. And the private security company goes, not a problem. Here in Portland we have 3,000 police officers and we have 30,000 security guards. [author’s note: according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics there are 12,800 security guards and 881 police officers in Portland.]

Lou: Wow! That’s a big difference. I wonder if you see your role as also kind of social worker or community liaison. What do you think the role of a security guard is when interfacing with the severe homeless crisis in Portland?

Damian: Portland is so specific. You have so many competing demographics. You have the nonprofit industry. You have those who are suffering from homelessness and that demographic. You have the mental illness issue. You have drug addiction. And then on top of that, you have activism and intellectualism. So there’s all of these different dynamics. 

It’s much easier, with the dangers and the problems we have here, to train a security guard up to a base level of outreach than to go in the reverse and take someone who is in the mental health field and train them up to a base level of situational awareness with the violent things that happen here. I think that the company I’m working for started off like most security companies–they were more of an enforcement model. They took a special forces approach to addressing situations. In order to address a lot of the issues overseas they have a hearts and mind concept where, when you embed in a certain area, you have to understand the people that you’re dealing with. You have to understand what they’re going through, understand their religion, understand their politics. And by embedding with that demographic and having an understanding of who you’re around, you can better reach them from a more compassionate place to try and change things. And that’s the model that they created in Old Town Portland. So private security here in Portland does more than a vast majority of law enforcement agencies in middle and small town America. I was up for hire in a small town in Missouri, and it would have taken me 15 years working for that police department to see the number of homicides, overdoses, the types of mental illness and mental health crisis that we deal with on the street in Old Town. And we’re seeing that all the time here in Portland as security guards. It makes it a necessity that private security evolves and develops into something more, given the issues that people are experiencing here in Portland and how that’s connected to all of these different demographics.

Lou: So what is safety in your ideal world? What does that look like for you? 

Damian: I mean, that’s kind of a hard question to answer. I don’t foresee anything getting better in terms of there being less of a need for security in Portland. I think that if anything, it’ll get more privatized and more niche, like we were talking about before, how everyone can kind of tailor their service to what they want to see. If people don’t want a more dystopian police state… if we’re being honest, you don’t have the actual police force on the street, but you have privatized security, that’s still having a police state. I mean, the uniform is different. The ability to do certain things or enforce certain things are different, but the emotional feeling, the response that you get in the immediate, positive or negative, from the people that are seeing it, it’s the same. 

So, in order to get away from that, in a perfect world, a lot of things would have to change. Number one, this esoteric idealism that we have in Portland where people want to facilitate a utopian type of existence, we need to realize that’s not necessarily feasible. Because you can have the greatest of ideas; we want everyone to live together and get along and we won’t have to worry about carbon emissions and everybody’s eating clean. But you know, people have free will and it’s America and you have free choice. So it’s going to always be very difficult to get people to push in the right direction. One of the things that makes America so great is the fact that everybody can be an individual. So, I don’t know that anything would really change here. I don’t think people here want to require more accountability and responsibility from people. So I don’t really see it changing. 

Lou: Yeah. I guess there’s a philosophical question here about free will and what it means to live in a society together. And I wonder, do you think it’s even possible for there to not be property crime anymore or for there not to be homeless people anymore, if everyone got their needs met? Do you feel like those are just going to be facts of life?

Damian: It’s going to be facts of life because you’re going to always have bad people. And when I say bad people, I don’t mean the homeless are bad people. I just mean in general, there’s going to always be people that have evil intentions. There’s going to always be people that take advantage of a good situation or the system. There’s going to always be the people that are self-serving. So even in a society where there’s very little crime, I mean, you could find a city where there’s almost no crime. There’s still some crime, right? But the more you take the guardrails off in society, the more open you are to crime.

So like, for instance, if you say that no matter what drug of choice you want to use, you’re free to use it. If you take that guardrail off, then the people that want to use drugs all the time are going to be in this area. But it doesn’t just stop with that because someone has to supply the drugs. So that opens up an opportunity for the cartel. Once the cartel is here, now you have people fighting over turf. That creates an opportunity for gangs. Well, someone’s got to supply the guns. So now people that supply illegal firearms are now in the mix. There’s all of these things that happen in the periphery of a decision to just take the prosecution away from drugs. And it’s the same thing with homelessness. If you say, look, a person has a right to exist how they want. And if they want to live on the street, they can. Well, there’s a lot of things that come with it. There’s going to be sex trafficking and all kinds of other issues that are on the periphery. 

Lou: I have an idealist side of me that imagines that if people were well taken care of, if people could find good jobs that paid them enough and places to live that were affordable, places that they weren’t getting priced out of, that having those basic things would solve a lot of the issues that people have of feeling unsafe or the property crimes. But maybe we see differently on that.

Damian: I think that that mentality and that idealism, it’s commendable, but it doesn’t align with a lot of different things. Number one, we live in a capitalist society. In order to just make that happen, you have to have a place where the people can go. You have to have the ability to facilitate the building and the maintenance of those areas. And all of that has to be paid for by someone. 

And even with that, if you could get all of that to work out, at some point someone’s ideal of what they want might exceed what they’re able to get. And when that person thinks, “I’m working a job where I’m making $25 an hour and I’m able to pay for this one bedroom apartment. And from the idealist perspective, this is good for me. But now I want more. In order for me to get more, I have to make $35 an hour.” So now that person has broken out of that idealistic environment because they have the desire to achieve more. They’re going to want to do something different. And so that’s going to cause strife or problems.

Lou: How do you know when you have enough? How do you know when you’ve “made it” or when you feel satisfied? 

Damian: You know, I grew up in Arkansas. My parents went to segregated schools. They came up under Jim Crow, literally eating in the back of restaurants, riding in the back of the bus, sitting in segregated areas. So I went into the military first out of high school. I never got my college degree. From the time that I graduated high school up until say 2016, the most I had ever made per year was probably $50,000. I have a couple of friends from high school who are famous Hollywood actors. Watching their success and seeing them on the runway and talking to them and hearing about the life that they lead, I always thought to myself, “Man, I wish I had more money. If I could just make $100,000 I would feel so proud of myself and my life would change.” In 2020 I moved here and 2021 was the first year I made over $100,000. I made that hundred grand and I was so excited, and then the next year I made close to $160,000, so I was like, “I’ve made it.” Well, I bought a house which is in a really bad neighborhood, with inflation and cost of living that’s what I could get. There’s drug addicts on my street, people literally camping right outside my door. I have not had one day–and I mean this with all sincerity–I’ve not had one single solitary day of peace in my house since I moved in.

Lou: That sucks.

Damian: I was much happier when I was in Missouri. I was paying $600 a month for a 1200 square foot apartment that had two full bathrooms, two full bedrooms, and a deck. It was amazing. I was making $35-40,000 a year. My wife and I went out every weekend. We ate out almost every night. My life was so much better! I think to answer your question, it’s not about how much you make, it’s about where you live, it’s about your experiences, the people that you have around you, what kind of job you’re doing, right? 

Lou: That’s super hard to achieve your dream and then be like, “actually this isn’t as great as I thought it was gonna be.” Do you ever think about moving back or doing something different? 

Damian: Yeah I mean, I really like security but I definitely think that my future is not in Portland. I’m getting older. I think in a perfect world I would live somewhere down South. I’ll be 50 in four years. I want to spend the next 25 years waiting for my grandkids to be born and just being grandpa and just living and being happy. But I do think I’ve never really been happy anywhere. I have social anxiety, I have depression. I don’t know that I’ve ever or will ever find a place where I’m really content.

Lou: I hard relate to that. This kind of makes me think back to my idealism and the importance of having imagination. I’m thinking about your parents growing up in Jim Crow–could they even have imagined what was possible for you or for their grandkids? I like to believe that if we’re able to imagine something better like we can we can get there one day. My family is Jewish, so I’m descended from people who were, generations back, kicked out of their homes. I don’t know if my ancestors could have even imagined what’s happening for me today. I like to think about that in terms of what the future could look like. We might not even know what’s possible. 

Damian: And you have the ability to shape that, that’s what’s so amazing. Think about what your family came from and what my family came from. Think about where we could go. 

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Damian Bunting (he/him) is a Portland-area armed security officer, second amendment advocate, and digital training instructor looking to educate, motivate, and influence dialogue and communication. 

Lou Blumberg (they/them) is an artist, facilitator, and educator with ties to San Francisco, New Orleans, and Portland. With a belief that a better world is possible, their deeply personal practice deals with conflict and its impact on our relationships and lives, surveillance and safety, and joy in despairing times. They are part of the MFA Art and Social Practice program at Portland State University. They’d like to mediate your next conflict.