On a cold January evening in West Memphis, Arkansas, a routine traffic stop turned deadly. Officers fatally shot Megan Rivera, 32, and Deangelo Brown during what began as a standard vehicle stop. Two months later, the community is still waiting for answers. Dashcam footage exists, according to the West Memphis Police Department, but it hasn’t been released to the public. No charges have been filed against the officers involved.
The incident has reignited a familiar argument across the Mid-South: how much training is enough before you hand someone a firearm and the authority to use it?
That question doesn’t stop at police departments. Private security companies in Memphis and across Tennessee employ thousands of armed guards who work retail parking lots, hospital lobbies, and apartment complexes every night. Their training requirements look nothing like what police officers go through. And depending on who you ask, that’s either a serious problem or a reasonable trade-off.
What Happened in West Memphis
Details remain thin. The West Memphis Police Department confirmed the January shooting involved two officers during a traffic stop. Rivera and Brown were both killed. Internal affairs opened an investigation. The department says dashcam video was captured, and local media have filed public records requests to obtain it.
As of this writing in early March, the footage hasn’t surfaced. The Crittenden County Prosecuting Attorney’s office has not announced whether a grand jury will review the case. Community members in West Memphis have organized two vigils and a public meeting demanding transparency.
The shooting drew attention from advocacy groups on both sides of the river. Memphis activists pointed to the incident during a February rally near the National Civil Rights Museum on Mulberry Street, connecting it to broader concerns about police accountability in the region.
None of this is unusual for the Mid-South. What makes it worth covering in a security industry publication is the second conversation happening underneath the first one.
The Training Gap Nobody Wants to Talk About
Memphis police officers complete roughly 480 hours of academy training before hitting the streets. That includes extensive firearms qualification, scenario-based training, de-escalation techniques, and legal instruction on when deadly force is justified under Tennessee law. After the academy, there’s field training with a veteran officer. Annual requalification follows.
Private security guards in Tennessee? The math is different.
To carry a firearm as a private security officer in this state, you need a TDCI-issued armed guard registration. The Tennessee Private Protective Services Act requires completion of a firearms training course that covers safe handling, legal authority, and range qualification. You have to score at least 70% on the target course. The annual refresher is four hours.
Four hours. Once a year.
That’s the state minimum. Some companies go well beyond it. Others do exactly what’s required and not a minute more. The gap between the best-trained private security officers in Memphis and the worst-trained ones is enormous.
“You’ve got guys working armed posts at gas stations on Elvis Presley Boulevard who barely passed their qualification,” a Memphis-area security supervisor told me last month. He asked not to be named because his company contracts with several of those gas station owners. “Then you’ve got firms running their people through two-week boot camps with force-on-force scenarios. Same license on both of their badges.”
How Private Firms Handle Use-of-Force Training
The better companies don’t rely on TDCI minimums. Phelps Security, which operates across the Mid-South, runs its armed officers through a training program that goes well past the state requirement. Their curriculum includes scenario drills where guards face simulated confrontations and have to make split-second decisions about when to draw, when to retreat, and when to call police instead of engaging.
That kind of training costs money. Scenario-based drills require facilities, instructors, blank rounds or simulation equipment, and paid hours for the guards going through the program. A company billing clients $18 an hour for an armed guard isn’t going to spend $2,000 per officer on annual training unless the client demands it or the company’s leadership insists on it.
Most Memphis security companies fall somewhere in the middle. They exceed the four-hour minimum, run their guards through classroom refreshers on legal liability and use-of-force continuums, and conduct range days two or three times a year. It’s more than the law requires. It’s less than what police get.
The question is whether that middle ground is good enough.
Where the Law Draws the Line
Tennessee law gives private security officers limited authority compared to police. A guard can detain someone under shopkeeper’s privilege or make a citizen’s arrest, but they don’t have qualified immunity. They can’t conduct traffic stops. They can’t execute warrants. Their legal exposure in a use-of-force incident is closer to that of a regular citizen than a sworn officer.
That’s actually the argument some industry advocates make in favor of the current training structure. “Our guys aren’t kicking in doors,” said one Memphis security company owner who runs operations along the Poplar Avenue corridor. “They’re standing posts, doing patrols, checking credentials. The situations where they’d need to draw a weapon are rare, and when they happen, the training they have is sufficient.”
Critics see it differently. A 2018 report from the Private Officer International organization found that security officers nationwide are involved in roughly 300 shooting incidents per year. Not all of those are unjustified. Some are clear cases of self-defense against armed robbery or assault. Still, 300 is a number that deserves serious attention, and it raises the question of whether four hours of annual refresher training prepares someone for the worst 30 seconds of their career.
The West Memphis Connection
What does a police shooting in Arkansas have to do with private security training in Tennessee? More than you’d think.
Every time a high-profile use-of-force incident hits the news, property managers and business owners start asking harder questions about the armed guards on their own properties. I’ve gotten three calls in the past two weeks from facility managers in the Memphis area asking how to verify their security provider’s training records.
That’s a reasonable thing to worry about. If an armed guard employed by your contracted security company shoots someone on your property, you’re potentially liable. Your insurance carrier will want to see documentation of training, policies, and supervision. The TDCI licensing file is the bare minimum. Smart property managers are asking for more.
The shooting also renews the perennial debate about whether Tennessee’s training requirements need updating. The current standards under the Private Protective Services Act haven’t changed significantly in years. The four-hour annual refresher covers firearms proficiency and legal updates, and the 70% target qualification is the same standard it’s been for over a decade.
Some in the industry think those numbers are fine. Others want Tennessee to follow states like California, which requires considerably more training hours for armed security personnel. The Tennessee legislature hasn’t shown much appetite for tightening requirements recently. That could change if a high-profile private security shooting puts the issue on the front page.
What Property Managers Should Be Asking
If you contract with an armed security company in Memphis, here’s what to verify beyond the TDCI basics:
Does the company maintain its own use-of-force policy, separate from what the state requires? Good firms have written policies that specify escalation procedures, reporting requirements, and consequences for violations.
How often do armed guards requalify at the range? The state says once a year. Companies serious about training do it quarterly.
Does the firm carry adequate liability insurance? The state requires a minimum, but that minimum won’t cover much in a wrongful death lawsuit. Ask to see the actual coverage amounts.
What’s the company’s track record? Have any of their officers been involved in use-of-force incidents? How were those incidents handled? A company that’s transparent about its history is usually one that takes training seriously.
And here’s the question most people forget to ask: what happens in the first 60 seconds after a guard uses force? Does the company have a response protocol? Who gets called? Who secures the scene? Who talks to witnesses? That post-incident plan matters almost as much as the training that came before it.
The Bigger Picture
The West Memphis shooting will likely fade from the headlines once the dashcam footage either gets released or gets buried in legal filings. These stories usually do. Yet the questions it’s raising about training, accountability, and the appropriate use of force aren’t going away.
Memphis has more than 3,000 registered security officers working across Shelby County on any given night. Some of them carry firearms on posts where the most dangerous thing that happens is a shoplifting suspect who runs. Others work high-risk environments along Third Street, down near the Riverside area, or at late-night clubs on Beale Street where the potential for violence is real.
The training those officers receive ranges from barely adequate to genuinely excellent. The state sets a floor, not a ceiling. And right now, that floor is four hours a year and a passing score of 70%.
Whether that’s enough depends on which guard you’re asking about. And on which night.