Who Guards The Security Guards?

The people asked to enforce covid safety rules put up with low pay, minimal training, and some dangerously angry customers

- By Polly Mosendz, Kim Bhasin, and Anders Melin

One Sunday last May, Karmen Kolda arrived early for his 11 a.m. shift as a security guard at a medical marijuana dispensary southeast of downtown San Jose. He’d made the 30-mile commute from his home in San Mateo wearing his usual all-black gear, with “SECURITY” printed on the back of his shirt. Kolda, who’s employed by Genesis Private Security in San Jose, spent the day checking IDs and reminding customers to stay 6 feet apart and wear face masks. A little after 3 p.m., he heard a commotion. A man without a face covering was yelling at a clerk who’d asked that he put one on. Kolda stepped in and told the man to calm down or get out. The customer got in his face, cursed at him, and shoved him hard in the chest, sending Kolda—5 feet 9 inches, 190 pounds—into a display case. The attacker fled, and staff called the police.

After four days in the hospital with a fractured vertebra, Kolda went home. He says he spent three months partially confined to a recliner and had to sleep on his side to relieve his back pain. It wasn’t until Labor Day that he could even move around without a walker. His doctor told him the injuries could have been worse had he not been wearing the ballistic vest his wife got him for Christmas. “Most security officers are really nice,” says Kolda, 49, who’s been in the industry since leaving the Army in 1994. “We’re trying to survive through this pandemic as well.”