A Dangerous and DarkEndeavor

This story is based on actualevents
from a security contract managedby
Frank ConradMusumici

I was feeling pretty good and full of myself, still riding high on my success when I won the contract to provide armed security at a recent housing project. I had assigned armed security officers to conduct patrols and had a state-of-the-art entry-control system installed. This helped the local police crack down on narcotics and crime in the complex. I received a letter of commendation for my work implementing the total security program, and I wanted to use that achievement as a platform to further promote my security agency. I thought that success in this new endeavor would be just as easy, but in retrospect, I realize that I was ignorant, naïve, and arrogant, as youth often is, and soon discovered to my utter dismay, how wrong I was.

The security detail would consist of four armed security patrol officers, and one site supervisor per shift. Each of the four men would patrol an assigned building conducting internal and external patrols at the direction and discretion of the site supervisor during the shift.

I had a contact in the state police gang unit. We had both worked together on previous assignments and became friends. One day during lunch, I told him about the new assignment. I hadn’t started working on the logistics of it yet, but I had heard that there was a lot of crime and drug dealing in the huge complex. He looked at me as if I had kicked his dog. He frowned and asked me if I was serious. I told him that I was, and he proceeded to warn me about being very careful in that particular location. He said you’ll be dealing with two prominent gangs and a lot of crime and drugs.

He made me promise that I would contact him If I had any problems there. He couldn’t go into any details because of ongoing investigations, and I, as a private detective, was considered a civilian. The first month on the new site went pretty well since I always had extra men at the start of each shift whenever we acquired a new armed site.

Rodrigo Holms was sixteen years old and a troublemaker since the first day we started at the complex. He kept harassing the guards as they did their patrols, and did his best to ridicule them constantly, especially when he had an audience. He would yell at them, saying they were not real cops, that they would probably shit their pants if they ever had to use their weapons, and that he didn’t even think the guns in their holsters were real. “I would love to be there when somebody busts a cap in one of your asses,” he would say. They tried to ignore his insults, but they were losing patience.

Almost at the start of the following month, my telephone rang and yanked me out of a pleasant dream. Usually, Jensen, my director of operations worked the night shift at the office and would take care of anything that came up during the night. The fact that I had received a telephone call at two thirty in the morning made me apprehensive; this meant that the problem was serious enough for me to get involved. I picked up the phone, not wanting to sound too gruff, and asked him to elaborate. He said that one of our officers had shot someone.

This woke me up completely, and I told hi