ALEX HOBEN

Trustee Shannon Wood makes a public statement against Allied Universal Security’s contract amendment.

The TCC board approved the hiring of armed security guards from Allied Universal Security to patrol all campuses from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.

Allied provides armed security officers and security professionals and is the largest security company in the United States, according to the National Association of Security Companies. In 2024, Allied employed 304,000 and had 402 offices.

“This coverage helps us make sure that our campuses are covered 24 hours per day, seven days per week,” said Chief Financial Officer Pamela Anglin.

The college had a previous contract in February 2022 that had Allied providing armed security services at the Tarrant County College Opportunity Center and the Erma C. Johnson Northwest Center for Excellence for Aviation, Transportation and Logistics.

The contract amendment to hire Allied for a one-year optional renewal will cost the college up to $1.5 million. The new contract began on April 1 and will end on March 31, 2026.

Trustee Shannon Wood voted against the motion at the March 13 monthly meeting. The matter was discussed in closed session. When they returned to open session Wood made a public statement about why she voted against the amendment.

“My question is what happens if there’s a security risk or shooting on a campus by an armed security guard?” she said. “Having security guards that are armed without police. trainings is opening up the college to litigation and a public publicity nightmare. I’ve been entrusted by the constituents of District 2 to be a guardian of not only their tax dollars, but also the students, faculty and guests of the college. I cannot in good conscience allow the allow the safety of the students, faculty and guests of the college to be at risk by approving armed security officers when we have TCC police officers to fill the role.”

She said TCC had three years to hire additional police officers to fill the security gaps, and that it made more sense to spend the $1.5 million on hiring more TCC officers.

Trustee Kenneth Barr shared Wood’s concerns but voted in favor of the motion, saying he and the other board members are aware of incidents outside of TCC that involved poorly trained officers.

“I wanted to understand the training and experience and background checks that the company did. I thought the explanations were good and made sense,” Barr said. “The main thing is, we don’t want armed people working for security service campuses that haven’t been well trained. And we also don’t want people who have been dismissed from other employment for incidents that shouldn’t have happened.”

In the amended agreement, the college has expanded the use of security officers by adding a position at the Off-Site District Multipurpose Center on Riverside Drive.

ODMC houses district facilities, personnel, asset management or inventory control, district records and archives and warehousing.

The position at ODMC will provide protection from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., and security officers will patrol the parking lot in a college vehicle.

At the March 6 board work session, trustees raised questions about using Allied instead of TCC police officers. Wood questioned TCC Chief of Police Shaun Williams about the pay rate comparison between TCC police and the security company and how the security officers are trained.

“I’m just concerned because my thought is we know how we train our officers and we know they’re trained very well and we trust them,” Wood said. “Now, I understand it’s at night, so that’s a totally different situation. If we’re just saving a little bit of money, I’m not sure that it’s not better to have our own officers.”

Williams said that one of the main reasons they decided to use security contractors was because of the difficulty in filling those positions. However, that could change.

“Now that we’ve been able to increase the salary for the officers, we’re hoping in the future we can supplement those officers back and then we can just have all of our certified officers in all three shifts,” he said.

NE student Lyra Moncivais, who takes night classes and has friends who are on campus late for classes, said he supports having armed security guards after hours.

“It is a necessary evil we need in this world, with how the world is going around. So I wouldn’t mind too much,” he said. “I would wish they have a lot of training with their weapons to feel somewhat safe.”