Free Press editorial writer Nancy Kaffer wants to know more about "the reportedly hundreds of cameras [Dan] Gilbert's security forces have placed downtown," but all she can do is speculate.
When I submitted a list of questions about the company's downtown security operations, Gilbert's folks declined to answer.
"We should know how our downtown is patrolled, who's doing it and what the outcomes of that work are," Nancy Kaffer suggests.
After "multiple requests over a period of months," the journalist tells what didn't happen next:
Rock Ventures provided only the most cursory information about its security operation. Other companies I reached out to were more forthcoming, providing information the same day I asked.
Naturally, Kaffer is glad to work, shop and dine in a well-patrolled and watched area.
And I realize that the cash- and resource-strapped Detroit Police Department can't, at this point, go it alone. Yet this encroachment of private security into public spaces concerns me — and it should concern you, too. We should know how our downtown is patrolled, who's doing it and what the outcomes of that work are.
But that kind of information, which public police departments would — or could be made to — disclose, is dispensed only at the companies' discretion.
The extensively reported commentary has comments from a Detroit Police captain, the chief security officer at DTE Energy (about 20 guards), a senior vice president Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (37) and a rock ventures communications manager (no numbers).
-- Alan Stamm
Related video: Here's an October 2013 report by WXYZ on private downtown safeguards.
