Armed at the Termination Meeting
A 120-employee manufacturer retains your firm for a 90-minute termination meeting involving a production supervisor who has twice threatened a manager. The client wants your investigator - whose Ohio registration carries a current firearm-bearer notation - in the room, and wants him to "physically remove" the supervisor if he refuses to leave. Flat fee, $1,500. The firm has no written firearms or use-of-force policy, no training record beyond the state qualification course, and nothing in writing from the client authorizing an armed presence except a two-line email. The supervisor has no known weapons but holds a concealed handgun license and has a truck in the lot.
1. Should the investigator be armed for this assignment? Work through the authorization, the risk, and the business side, not just the credential.
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A firearm-bearer notation is permission to carry, not a plan. The notation authorizes armed work when the licensed employer assigns it and the conditions of the notation are current - training and requalification verified, notation active, employer's records showing who is authorized to be armed and when.
What is missing here:
- Employer authorization in writing: no policy, no assignment memo, no firearms directive. An armed employee operating on a two-line client email is an unauthorized act the firm will own.
- Client authorization with defined scope: the email does not say armed, does not define the role, and does not address the client's own workplace-weapons policy.
- Training beyond the state course: no judgment, decision-making, or force-policy training, and no documentation of either.
- Insurance: confirm the policy does not exclude firearms incidents and that the client contract does not leave the firm holding an uninsured use-of-force claim.
Assessment: the armed presence may be defensible given two prior threats, but only after a written assignment, a written client authorization, a briefing on the role (observe and react, not enforce), and a check of the client's premises policy. If any of that cannot be done before the meeting, the answer is unarmed.
And the framing matters: the investigator is not there to remove anyone. He is there to observe, document, and respond to an imminent threat.
2. The supervisor refuses to leave the room and steps aggressively toward the manager. Analyze the force question, including the client's instruction to "physically remove him."
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Separate the two questions: removing him, and defending against him.
Removal: the client's instruction is the problem. A private investigator has no police authority. A private person's arrest authority is narrow - essentially a felony committed or reasonably believed committed, with detention until a warrant can be obtained - and it is not a tool for enforcing a termination. Grabbing, escorting, or blocking an employee who is not committing a crime is an assault-and-false-imprisonment exposure for the firm, and a guard function your investigator is not staffed to perform. The correct move for a refusal to leave is the client's management and a call to police.
Defense: if the supervisor advances, the standard is objective reasonableness under the circumstances: immediacy, proportionality, and necessity. Force is justified to defend against an imminent threat of harm to the investigator or another person, in the amount reasonably necessary to stop that threat - not to punish, not to protect property, not to compel compliance. Ohio does not impose a duty to retreat on a person who is lawfully present, but that rule is a defense to a charge, not a business plan for a conference room.
What the investigator controls: positioning (exit path, no one between him and the door), verbal de-escalation, distance, hands-free readiness, and calling 911 early. Document the sequence and the exact words used.
3. List what the firm must put in place before accepting any similar armed assignment, and what it should say in the client contract.
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Internal, before the next job:
- A written firearms and use-of-force policy: authorization process, who may be armed, storage and transport, reporting requirements, post-incident protocol (medical aid, notification, no statements beyond identification, preserve the scene, separate officers).
- Documented verification of each firearm-bearer's current notation and qualification, kept in the personnel file with an expiration date and a tickler.
- Training beyond qualification: decision-making, de-escalation, and scenario work, with attendance records.
- An incident-reporting chain that reaches counsel the same day.
Client contract language:
- Scope describing the role as observe, deter by presence, and respond to imminent threats; expressly no detention, no removal, no searches, no enforcement of workplace rules.
- Client's written authorization for an armed presence, signed by someone with authority, acknowledging the client's own weapons policy and its cooperation with police.
- Client responsibility for its HR decisions and for calling police when removal is required.
- Indemnification, insurance confirmation, and a clause requiring the client to tell you in advance about any known threat, weapon, or protective order.
Pricing note: a $1,500 flat fee for an armed, high-conflict assignment usually means the risk was not priced at all.