I posted this story in reply to another security incident thread. I looked hard and couldn't find a place to report this.
Preface:
Every single enforcer I encountered was extremely polite. Knew how to de-escalate situations. Respected me, my property, my personal space, the fact that I paid a lot to be here and they don't want to ruin my day.
Some of the public security officers, however, were shameful. There were definitely many officers who were perfectly fine, but the bad apples are all I will remember and frankly I'm no longer comfortable with PAX East with this level of security.
Story:
The bad apples that stick in my mind:
- Had no respect for the citizens. Barked commands without a "Please" or "Thankyou" and responded to confusion, anxiety, stress, etc. with anger, short temperedness, and constant escalation of bad situations.
- They had no respect for my property through bag check. Blank expressions, ripping through my stuff, then sliding my bag without looking to the next table with a half foot drop, disregarding anything fragile. It disgusted me seeing this level of disrespect.
- They had no respect for personal space. My boyfriend and I had an incident where an officer supervisor was harassing us because he said we were violating rules. What did we do? Pause to zip up our bags after bag check! This warranted the officer pushing my boyfriend toward the door saying things like "Move!". My boyfriend got upset and insulted him and the officer followed us all the way to the door and grabbed my boyfriend yelling "What did you say?! What did you say?! "
THIS WAS A SUPERVISOR.
I attempted to file a complaint inside but the officers said they have to file them through, guess what, their supervisor! They called him in several times and he refused to come in saying he's too busy. He was busy enough to abandon his post, follow us, grab us, and harass us, but not to try to do his job and take our complaint.
PAX Enforcers were TREMENDOUSLY helpful and directed us to the level 0 public security desk where an officer documented our complaint with pen & paper. I have no idea if this incident was actually reported anywhere beyond that point though. This officer was very polite, very sympathetic, calmed us down, told us not to let it ruin our PAX visit and that the officer in question has a history of problems like this.
I am not comfortable with this level of security. I do not mean this as a threat. I know if I leave there's a thousand people who will take my place next year. But I just mean this as my personal feelings. This has reached a level that I'm no longer personally comfortable attending PAX East in Boston.
I want to reiterate, ALL PAX Enforcers & BCEC employees I dealt with other than security were nothing but professional and helpful. I am so thankful that they are able to keep chaotic situations orderly while being polite, happy, cheerful, and respectful. But the bad apples of the public security team are unacceptable.
tl;dr:
I absolutely did NOT want to post this story on a public forum but I was completely unable to find a contact method to report this. I can totally imagine being in their shoes. I understand there's rules, but some of these officers had NO patience and expected us to be fully aware at all times or face the consequences. Inappropriate levels of physical contact were unacceptable and I'm no longer comfortable attending PAX at the BCEC. I'm not confident my incident was reported. While I accept blame for failure to de-escalate with regard to my partner insulting a security officer mid-incident, it did NOT warrant physical contact.
Posts
I'll pass this thread along to the head of venue security and if you'd like to send along your info to me at [email protected], I'll make sure they followup with you as well.