New Orleans Security

Some of you that has taken some of our classes know that I am active in the security industry. I have been involved in Executive Protection details, Patrol, Static posts and more.

Right after Hurricane Katrina hit, I deployed with a team to New Orleans. Needless to say it was a great experience and we all learned a lot. We learned about racism and that it flows both ways down there. It was an eye opener for us. My team consisted of all former military individuals initially. We had Marine's, Army and Airforce on this mission.

For those of you who have not been to New Orleans, if you do travel there and you DO have your Concealed Firearms Permit, I HIGHLY suggest that you take a firearm and carry it while you are down there.

We did make a lot of good friends while we were there with limited problems. The few people that I will always remember are Clifford, Miss Kimmie, Jerome, Lionell, Gary, J.R., Lyndee, Dave R, Andrew R, Alex, Armondo, Brad and so many more good people. We did run into a lot of people that have no business being involved in the security industry however. A lot of this stems from attitudes that they had and/or their lack of training.

The picture above here are of myself and two other individuals that I deployed with. Both are currently still active in the security industry. When we deployed we didn't exactly know what we were getting into. When I deployed I took the following equipment:

BlackHawk SERPA holster on a drop leg/thigh rig

5.11 pants

Boots

Glock 22

Glock 19

M4 Rifle

Mossberg Shotgun

Body Armor

Hydrastorm

Kevlar Helmet

MRE's

Small First Aid kit

CRKT M16-12M knife

Fox O.C.

and approximately 500 rounds of ammunition.

We did get to clear (CQB) an entire hotel for one of the companies that we worked for. The hotel was called "The High Rise". We recovered a LOT of drugs, one stolen firearm and a lot of people were arrested. If I remember right we made over 20 arrests in this event. It initially started with one of our Agents getting threatened. We responded with several other Agents and long guns. One thing that people don't know is a LOT of these people had criminal histories and a lot of them had violent crime histories.

We conducted this Operation for about 2 hours with the permission of the Security Manager for the hotel. The Security Manager (Eddie Compus) was very pleased with the results of our Operation. We completed this mission with no injuries to our Agents of the Public.

It was sad to see the condition of the hotel. Some of it I'm sure was due to the Hurricane and others was in part to the residence that were living in it. We found Heroin, Marijuana, Cocaine and a lot of other illegal items in this hotel. We seemed to be responding to this hotel about once a month after this first Operation. We also learned what to expect when initially deploying to somewhere where there is very little services.