The Intoxicated Man Blocking the Only Open Entrance
You are the sole guard on duty at a 24-hour shopping centre. At 02:40 a man, roughly 30 years old and 190 cm tall, smelling strongly of alcohol, sits on the floor of the north lobby and blocks the only open entrance. You have already asked him twice to leave. He has called you names, refused, and thrown a half-full coffee cup that struck the wall about a metre from a cleaner who is seven months pregnant and mopping ten metres away. No one has been touched. Backup is 12 minutes out, your partner called in sick, and the site policy says 'no physical intervention without supervisor approval'. The supervisor's phone goes to voicemail.
1. State your lawful authority over this man and whether you currently have grounds to arrest or detain him.
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Authority
- He is on private property. Under the BC Trespass Act, the occupier - and a guard acting as the occupier's authorized agent - may require a person to leave, and a person who refuses after being asked commits an offence under that Act.
- That is a provincial offence, not a criminal one. The Criminal Code citizen's-arrest power (s. 494) is directed at criminal offences, so refusing to leave a mall does not by itself give you arrest authority. Your power here is removal, not arrest.
Do the criminal grounds exist? The thrown cup is the only candidate. It hit a wall, injured no one and caused no damage, and it is not clear it was aimed at a person. Building a detention on that fact alone is weak and would be hard to defend later. Treat it as a safety fact, not an arrest fact.
Therefore
- No arrest now. Move the cleaner and any bystanders out of the line of fire and put physical distance and a barrier between the man and them.
- Call police through dispatch immediately rather than waiting for backup, and keep repeating calm, single-instruction directions from a safe distance.
- Log each request you made, the times, and the exact words he used. If police cannot attend, your documented reasonableness is your protection.
2. Place the situation on the use-of-force continuum. What is the appropriate option now, and what facts would justify moving up?
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Where you are: presence and verbal direction. Both have been used and have failed. The next options are soft empty-hand control and then hard empty-hand; the gap between where you are and laying hands on a seated man is large.
Test before escalating
- Is there an immediate threat of harm to a person? Throwing objects says yes to a risk, not yet to an attack.
- Can I wait? Backup is 12 minutes and police are en route - waiting is available and is the least forceful option.
- Is the force proportionate to the risk, and is it the minimum available?
What justifies moving up: he rises and advances on the cleaner or on you, or he picks up another object and winds up. At that point a controlled, minimal hands-on stop - create distance, redirect, disengage, do not strike a non-advancing person - is defensible because you are protecting a third party who cannot easily leave.
The policy problem: the site rule requiring supervisor approval cannot require you to watch someone be injured. If the supervisor is unreachable, act on the imminent-danger exception, keep the force minimal, and then document in writing that you deviated, why, and who you tried to reach.
Always excessive: force after the threat has ended, force to punish or to hurry the removal, or continuing once he complies.
3. The pregnant cleaner has gone home and no bystanders are present. What changes? Separately, what changes if the man is 15 years old?
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Cleaner gone, no bystanders The risk calculus collapses in your favour. Nothing on the facts now requires hands-on contact: a trespasser sitting on a floor, at distance, with police coming, is a containment problem, not a use-of-force problem. You should hold position, keep the exit area clear as far as possible, and let police effect the removal. Acting sooner with force now buys nothing and costs you the justifiability of the entire intervention.
If he is 15
- Different legal environment: the Youth Criminal Justice Act shapes any arrest, and a youth must be dealt with differently - notify police immediately and, if any detention occurs, ensure a parent or guardian is contacted and that you do not question him about the incident.
- Lower tolerance for force: a youth's size and maturity affect the threat assessment, and restraint carries higher risk of injury and higher scrutiny.
- Provincial licensing rules and employer policy commonly restrict a security worker's handling of minors; check yours before acting.
- Either way, the correct move is the same: distance, observation, police, and a precise written record of exactly what you saw and said.