The owner of a North Philadelphia gas station chain recently
hired a security team armed with AR-15 shotguns.
And as you can see, they're also decked out in Kevlar vests to essentially deal
with the increase in break ins and thefts at these gas stations.
In fact in the area, armed robberies have gone up considerably,
especially at gas stations.
And Neil Patel, who is the owner of these gas stations,
hired the private security company to patrol his car Co gas stations.
And some in the community are concerned about it, but
honestly, unsurprisingly, if you ask me,
the majority of people in the community actually feel safer.
Now, I want to live in a society where we don't need people walking around
with AR-fifteens to make us feel safe, but
this is what things have come to in Philadelphia.
And one local news station actually pulled their audience to see whether or
not they're in favor of this.
A whopping 80% responded that they are in fact in favor of this,
because it makes them feel safe.
So, Patel explained the move while speaking to local news, he says,
they're forcing us to hire the security, high-level security, state level.
We are tired of this nonsense, robbery, drug trafficking, hanging around,
gangs, selling their drugs openly.
Cops here, they won't do anything.
They don't do anything.
Robberies, stealing, vandalizing my car.
He said that within the last few weeks,
the ATM at his store had been burgled twice.
He said that vandalism was so common.
It was also common as were carjackings.
Now, Patel hired the private security from a group called PA or
Pennsylvania S.I.T.E Agency Security, and I'm not really sure how this works.
I would like a little more clarity on it.
But apparently, one of the agents said quote,
we're Pennsylvania State Agents and we're not security.
Basically, what we do is security details when the public calls upon us,
when the police can't be there, explained one of the agents Andre Boyer.
Okay, so, John, I'm just gonna ask you what
you think right now as I, >> I don't know what it means that we're
not security, but we do security details.
>> So are you employed by the state?
Like who pays you?
>> I mean, I would assume that if it is a private security company,
they've got to be certified or licensed by the state.
I assume it's not just a group of guys who own guns.
>> They're making it seem like they're government agents, but they're not.
>> I don't know. There's a lot that I don't know about
the story that is a big part of it.
I don't know. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah, I mean, look, if the people in the community like it then they like it.
I don't know the experience they have day to day, for
me being around people with AR-15 does not make me feel more safer or secure.
I guess it's working for them.
It also seems as if there could be some sort of medium ground.
You could have guns nearby for the guards to go get, the fact that they have
to stand eight ft away from a person pumping gas with the rifle,
like not even fully pointed down.
I don't know if they were doing special stuff for the cameras, but
it seemed odd that they were like standing in amongst everything.
Okay, I guess the whole idea isn't just that, they can use force.
They want to make it very publicly, so that ideally they have to,
>> Yeah.
>> But also like okay, the break like ripping off the ATM,
the carjacking and stuff, that's bad.
When you start listing things like hanging around.
>> Yeah..
>> I like the idea that they're gonna start shooting people,
they're 15 because someone is hanging around or someone spray painted something.
>> Yeah, I agree with you on that.
Look, for me, the gang activity, the open drug dealing,
the robberies, armed robberies, armed robbery is not a small thing, okay?
Someone's got a gun in your face and they're robbing you.
You don't know if they're gonna shoot you or not.
That's terrifying, right?
And also, I mean at the end of the day, this is a business owners and
he's concerned that his customers aren't going to come back to his gas stations if
they feel unsafe.
So that's why he did this and for anyone who's like, well,
do we want to live in a society like this?
My answer is no.
I don't want to live in a society like this.
I don't want to live in a society where we have a two tiered public safety system.
Where those who can afford private security, get private security, and
those who can't, don't and don't feel safe.
And that is the direction we're headed in with at least some portion
of the self identified left saying they want to pull out abolish the police.
Okay, well, crime is still going to happen.
And just simply saying, okay, but root causes is not enough.
[LAUGH] >> Well, I mean, look,
you could address root causes definitely, >> Yeah, let's address root causes.
>> Also, >> No one disagrees with that.
Let's address root causes.
>> Yeah.
>> Crime is still gonna happen.
Crime still happens among who are incredibly wealthy and privileged.
So, what do we do about that?
>> Well, I would assume that what is done about that is that the cops do their jobs
when it's those people.
>> What do you do if cops are abolished though?
If like the utopian universe,
that some portion of the left comes to fruition, what happens?
What happens?
>> What I would say is that the situation that is in this story.
So, I looked up to see if Philadelphia had shockingly actually defunded the police by
80% or whatever and no, they didn't.
>> They haven't defunded the police.
>> They have like over $700 million police budget, and
you talked about the two tier justice system.
I would assume that the cops are still responding to crimes when it affects
wealthy people in certain neighborhoods.
It kind of seems like maybe they,
that was the actual guy who hired this says the cops don't do anything.
He doesn't say there are no cops, >> No, no, that's true.
>> Because the cops don't respond.
>> Right. Now,
we have, >> But
they still have this massive budget.
We have the same, >> And our budgets even larger.
So why don't they?
>> Okay, well, so
it's a little bit of a trick that people do that's actually incredibly frustrating.
Because I don't know if it's the case with Philadelphia,
but there are major cities who very briefly did cut the police budget, right?
They did that, and then on top of it there all the protests and
all the hate directed towards the cops, and a lot of people resigned.
They quit. They're like,
I don't want to do this anymore.
This is awful.
I hate being a pariah in society, bunch of people quit and
it's been incredibly hard to recruit new deputies.
So there's a massive shortage of police in a lot
of major cities including Los Angeles.
To be fair, I don't know if that's impacted Philadelphia specifically, but
you've also seen it in places like San Francisco.
So, I'll give you an example.
Because I looked this up, I was really curious to see if there's been
an increase in people hiring private security, and unfortunately there is.
So, by the way Fox 29 in Philly is the one that did the poll and they found that 80%
of the respondents said that the presence of the armed guards makes them feel safer.
They ask their audience, so obviously, it's not like a representative sample, but
it's still interesting that 80% of them thought no this is good.
ABC six, another local ABC affiliate in the area found
that firearm robberies more than tripled since 2020.
So that's part of what's motivating the hiring of private security.
Also over the past year, several neighborhoods in Chicago have
brought in private security amid a wave of robberies and carjackings.
Residents in San Francisco and Baltimore have done the same.
Many of those enhanced safety efforts are concentrated in, wow!
Would you look at that?
In higher-income communities where neighbors can afford it, like let's just
keep it real and they've taken it upon themselves to pay for the services.
In April, residents in Chicago's affluent Lincoln Park neighborhood
passed out flyers requesting $1200 per household to cover
the cost of a private patrol, Block Club Chicago reported at the time.
Community members estimated the annual cost would be $175,000.
And you know it's interesting,
because I haven't noticed any change in how much I pay for my local taxes.
My local taxes have not changed at all.
So, what's up with that, especially considering, okay, so
there is a shortage of cops in LA.
So where's that money going, if it's not paying for the salaries of the cops?
>> Well, I would assume they're crewing a massive surplus that they could use to
provide bonus incentives to get more people to sign up.
One would think will increase the benefits.
I mean, if you want people to do a job and they're not doing it with the conditions
you're giving them, then you enhance those conditions.
I mean, our budget is over a billion dollars here in LA.
>> Yeah, it's crazy.
It's super high and the fact that people have to go out of their way to hire
private security to deter crime is insane, and like most people can't afford that.
My neighborhood can't afford that.
>> $1200.
>> No way.
No way.
And to the point I was making- >> It's 300 bucks for a bunch of dogs.
>> [LAUGH] >> Let them lose.
>> And to your point, so San Francisco is one of the big cities that very briefly
cut the police budget to the tune of $120 million, that happened in 2020.
It was announced by Mayor London Breed, and then crime started to tick up again.
They redirected that funding to other areas like social services and stuff.
Then they reversed course once crime became more of a problem in San Francisco,
but at that point they had already lost a bunch of deputies, and
they're having difficulty hiring new ones.
>> There's a lot of stuff that gets caught up in that.
I mean, it's not like a budget includes many things.
I'm not gonna speak for literally everyone who advocated for defund the police, but
the idea wasn't just take 20% from everything.
They're not like going by and taking one out of five of the guns off the cops,
there saying, you don't need to be doing this sort of service.
So they'll put the funding into something else and have them do it.
That should not provide an overall reduction in the number of cops,
that's measurable.
Having them not answer certain sort of things that should be
freeing them up to do the regular job that they're traditionally assumed to be doing.
>> I don't think we should move toward a privatized policing model.
I see that happening.
I want to avoid that.
We need to reform policing in this country, okay?
That's it.
It's very simple.
I mean, it's not simple to carry out, but
in terms of what the the right path is moving forward, that's the right path.
Okay, austerity is not the right path.
Privatizing, not the right path.
Reforming, serious reform, is the right path.
And I don't know, I just feel like we've given up on that completely.
>> I think that a lot of people are trying to deal with it, it's complex.
I mean, look, if there are areas that have massive shortfalls,
then that is something that is going to take time to fix.
You don't train up a cop in a day and a half or anything like that.
To some extent, if cops are quiet quitting in the way that many people
maybe don't remember, but during the George Floyd protests.
There were cops publicly saying, we're just not going in New York.
We're not gonna do anything, we'll see what they think.
If they're doing that then sure,
I guess we could comply with blackmail effectively.
But in theory, if they're refusing to do their job,
then again, part of the reform is weeding people.
>> They should be fired.
>> Yeah, exactly. >> They should be fired.
You're done. You're doing a little quiet strike here,
you're done, gone.
>> You may not be able to do that instantaneously.
Again, you can't replace everyone all at the same time, but
that should be a part of the problem.
Throwing more money at a group of people who have said that
they're just not going to do the job, probably isn't going to fix the problem.
>> Cops should have four year degrees, okay?
So they're a little more mature before their deputies with guns.
I mean, there's so many reforms that could be happening.
Obviously, >> I'm not an expert on that.
>> Yeah, there's a lot,
including by the way, how about we stop giving them military weapons.
They don't need it.
I mean there's just a bunch of stuff that could happen.
But again, everything because of social media has turned into a personal
branding experiment as opposed to actually trying to find solutions.
To a very real serious problem, it's victimizing all sorts of people,
both in the form of police brutality, which we've been talking about.
And in the case of public safety and
people feeling like they don't have public safety.
So, we need to find real solutions and honestly at this point,
ignore the two extremes on the two ends of the spectrum on this issue.
We need to find real solutions, not just listen to people who are interested in
personal branding on Twitter.