Security officers are being overlooked during COVID-19 pandemic: NASCO

Essential and frontline workers such as doctors, nurses, grocery, and delivery personnel have been highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there’s one group who hasn’t received the credit it deserves — security guards, says Steve Amitay, executive director and general counsel at the National Association of Security Companies (NASCO).

“When you see that all the well-deserved praise of politicians and the media are given to essential workers for continuing to leave their homes to do their jobs, it’s just incredible that security officers who truly are on the frontlines are being overlooked in the praise,” Amitay told Yahoo Finance’s “On the Move.”

“Before COVID-19, the security officer was pretty much a visible deterrent at an entrance of a building —  he would help people. Now there’s added responsibilities of having to enforce the policies of the business. Some of the safe distancing and mass ordinances, so that’s an added responsibility.” 

Amitay tells Yahoo Finance that the risks security officers faced before COVID-19 were great, but the pandemic has amplified those risks.

“Someone might be ignorant, someone might be belligerent, someone might be troubled. But if someone comes into an establishment and says, ‘I’m not going to wear a mask,’ it falls on the security officer to deal with that situation, not anybody else in the store. Not the grocery clerk, not the retail employee; it’s a security officer who’s got that public safety duty.”

Attacks against security officials have spiked amid the coronavirus pandemic. Calvin James Munerlyn, a security guard at a Family Dollar in Michigan, was even killed after he allegedly refused to let a customer in the store without a mask.

Amitay notes that Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney’s (D-NY) introductory statement for the proposed COVID-19 compensation fund overlooked naming private security professionals, which he described as, “a measure of disrespect.”

Reggie Wade is a writer for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @ReggieWade.

Security Offers are First Responders too. "Push underway to make first responders' deaths due to COVID-19 'in the line of duty'"

Should COVID-19-related deaths of first responders be classified as "in the line of duty" deaths? 

Yes, say some local officials, backed by some state and U.S. representatives.

Passaic Firefighter Israel Tolentino was 31 when he died on March 31. It was the first COVID-19-related death of a first responder in the state. Paterson Police Officer Frank Scorpo, 34, died soon after, also due to complications from the virus.

Shortly after Tolentino's death, Passaic Mayor Hector Lora started to reach out to state and U.S. representatives. He wants the families of first responders who die from COVID-19 to be financially compensated as they would be under line-of-duty death standards.

"I don't want the families to have to wait around for years," Lora said of first responders' families. He said Tolentino, who also served the city as an EMT with St. Clare's Hospital, left behind two young children and a wife. His family should not suffer because he worked during a pandemic, the mayor said.

What does it mean

So what does declaring the deaths "in the line of duty" mean for the first responders and their families? 

Without the designation, the family or survivors of a first responder will receive a life insurance payout in the amount of 3½ times the salary of the last year worked. A yearly salary of $40,000 would mean a one-time payout of 140,000. There are no health benefits included for the surviving spouse or partner and no college funds for surviving children.

That's not enough, said Paterson Public Safety Director Jerry Speziale. 

He said Scopo was a popular traffic officer who died after contracting COVID-19. He was on the lower end of the salary scale and leaves behind two very young children and a wife.

"Forget about putting them through college — that's not going to put them through grade school," Speziale said of the payout if the virus deaths are not reclassified.

Currently, firefighters and police officers must die of a work-related cause for it to be considered an "in the line of duty death."

If the death is deemed to be in the line of duty, the surviving spouse or partner will receive, for their lifetime, "70% [of the salary] and free health care for widow and dependents from the state of New Jersey," the Passaic Fire Chief Pat Trentacost.

Surviving children's post-secondary education costs at a state college will also be covered.

Currently, the survivors must prove the first responder “more likely than not” contracted COVID-19 while on duty, officials said, for the death to be in the line of duty. The elected officials are looking to take out the burden of proof by survivors and make it automatic.