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 WASHINGTON (AP) - Private security guards paid little more than janitors and restaurant cooks are guarding many of the critical security sites in the United States, usually with minimal or no anti-terrorist training, an Associated Press investigation found.
The nation's security industry found itself involuntarily transformed after Sept. 11, 2001, from an army of "rent-a-cops" to protectors of the homeland. But cutthroat competition by security firms trying to win contracts with low bids has kept wages low and high-level training nonexistent.
Richard Bergendahl fights the war on terrorism in Los Angeles for $19,000 a year. Down the block from the high rise he guards is a skyscraper identified by President Bush as a target for a Sept. 11-style airplane attack.
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