Confession of an RNC security guard
Confessions of an RNC security guard
From sushi-scarfing Secret Servicemen to drunken Sarah-Palin lust, witness the underside of the Republican shindig.
By Avi Steinberg
Read more: Republican Party, John McCain, Opinion, Republican National Convention, 2008 election, Sarah Palin, Avi Steinberg
Damon Winter/The New York Times/Redux
Local law enforcement officials watch McCain campaign director Rick Davis on a giant screen at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn., on Aug. 31, 2008.
Sept. 6, 2008 | ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Gathered in the basement of an office building in a tough section of St. Paul, less than two weeks before the gavel drops downtown at the Republican National Convention, roughly 30 recruits hired by a private security company sit through 12 hours of lectures. I am one of these officers-in-training.
The group is a mix of moonlighting prison guards and cops, infantrymen and Marines between tours of duty in Iraq, immigrants, assorted freelance goons and young career seekers. There is also a crisp-looking airman and an outspoken right-wing ideologue, who never fails to demonstrate his remarkable talent for transforming any conversation, even one about the weather, into a discussion about the Mossad.
The RNC, I am told, is a training ground for these recruits. Those who perform well during the grueling 12-hour shifts before, during and after the convention will be considered for permanent jobs at the security firm.
Share this story on Facebook:
Share
Thanks for your support.
The instructor is Charles T. Thibodeau, or Chuck, a rotund and self-effacing 65-year-old security consultant bedecked in gold jewelry. Thibodeau leans back, cracks open a can of Rockstar Energy Drink and extols the virtues of non-heroism. He has taken painkillers all week to cope with a recent operation to remove varicose veins and is in something of a confessional mood; having been raised by a town drunk (one of his confessions) he isn't much of a romantic to begin with.
"I'll be the first to admit it," he says, crossing his arms. "I don't fight fair. I fight to win. If you got to take someone out -- sorry, I mean, 'reposition them to the ground' -- you go in with help. Under no circumstances do you go toe-to-toe. You gotta get some beefcake in there. I myself prefer to go in with four to five people. Last thing I want is a level playing field."
"What if you're alone and the guy is coming for you?" asks one of the recruits.
Thibodeau doesn't miss a beat.
"You run."
"I know what some of you tough guys are thinking," says Thibodeau, draining his Rockstar. "But trust me, unless you've got no escape route and are being seriously threatened, and can prove that in court by crying on the stand, you had better retreat. You either run or you cry. Your choice."
A recruit sitting in the back of the room begins to fidget and sink into his chair. He wears a T-shirt in the ubiquitous purple and yellow of Minnesota Vikings football. The shirt reads "What Would Leif Erikson Do?"
I, however, stay until the bitter end and await my assignment. The following is a log of a night in my life as an RNC security officer. The night shift is 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.
So it was not all Minneapolis/St. Paul Police but hired goons of the RNC who took the club them first and ask questions later approach, am I surprised
(warning salty language but reality of what happens in this diary of an RNC security man)
<salty language link deleted - LE>