How much authority do Security Guards have?

[tarkus]

That shalt not batter thine rent a cop/usher in thine house of the Lord!

Render to Gecko45 the things that are Gecko45's, and to God the things that are God's.

[seamusTX]

I find no authorization for forcing a criminal trespasser to leave a premises, either without effecting an arrest of the trespasser or after an arrest.

I already showed it to you.

If you think the system doesn't work that way, raise a ruckus in a bar that has a bouncer. When the bouncer throws you out, try to press charges.

Or light up a cigar in a mall food court and wait for Gecko45 to arrive.

- Jim

[casingpoint]

If you think the system doesn't work that way

Again, there appears to be no statutory authority in Texas for a security guard to remove a trespasser by force.

How the system works is, in Texas, a matter of common law practice, and that's how it works, I agree.

But strange things happen on appeal, and should a large dollar amount be involved, parishoners could find themselves tithing to a prevailing personal injury plaintiff in lieu of their church. Large dollar amount plaintiff get justice more frequently than the average shmuck who, for example, wanders into the wrong bar.

[srothstein]

Casingpoint,

There is a specific law allowing force to terminate a trespass. It is section 9.41 of the Penal Code:

Sec. 9.41. PROTECTION OF ONE'S OWN PROPERTY. (a) A person in lawful possession of land or tangible, movable property is justified in using force against another when and to the degree the actor reasonably believes the force is immediately necessary to prevent or terminate the other's trespass on the land or unlawful interference with the property.

The security guard would be in lawful possession of the property. Asking a person to leave and his refusing constitutes trespass. Removing him by the reasonable amount of force is how the guard would terminate the trespass.

[SlowDave]

Megachurches being what they are, they are not the body of christ and they are not the Kingdom of Heaven's court. They are "seeker churches" that only care about bringing in numbers. (which in my view are just entertainment centers to give emotional people emotional experiences devoid of any depth or understanding who the King of Kings is)

Wow. So... uh... You have obviously visited a LOT of "Megachurches" to be able to comment on them all in one fell swoop.
Judge not...
Never mind.

Mind you, I'm not saying Mega-churches are terrific. On the contrary, what I'm saying is that all the churches that have humans as members come up well short. I've seen plenty of problems in small churches as well as large churches. That's what happens when you get a bunch of forgiven, frail people together. Kind of like how there's a lot of infection going around at hospitals.

I hear that the churches that don't have humans are generally a LOT better.

[03Lightningrocks]

Megachurches being what they are, they are not the body of christ and they are not the Kingdom of Heaven's court. They are "seeker churches" that only care about bringing in numbers. (which in my view are just entertainment centers to give emotional people emotional experiences devoid of any depth or understanding who the King of Kings is)

Wow. So... uh... You have obviously visited a LOT of "Megachurches" to be able to comment on them all in one fell swoop.
Judge not...
Never mind.

Mind you, I'm not saying Mega-churches are terrific. On the contrary, what I'm saying is that all the churches that have humans as members come up well short. I've seen plenty of problems in small churches as well as large churches. That's what happens when you get a bunch of forgiven, frail people together. Kind of like how there's a lot of infection going around at hospitals.

I hear that the churches that don't have humans are generally a LOT better.

Wow. So....uh...You have obviously visited ALL churches to be able to comment on them ALL in one fell swoop.

[SlowDave]

Wow. So....uh...You have obviously visited ALL churches to be able to comment on them ALL in one fell swoop.

Touche. You got me. I have only attended probably 50 churches in my life (visited, member, went with friend etc.) and I have just been unlucky so far in that every single one I have attended has been imperfect. Dang the luck.

You got one of them perfect ones that I can visit/join? Oh wait, I'd just ruin it anyway. Guess you'll have to keep that perfect one for yourself.

Note, I said imperfect. Not that they were "not the body of Christ." Big diff between a church that is imperfect (i.e. "has problems") and one that "only cares about bringing in members." IMHO.

[casingpoint]

9.41: terminate the other's trespass on the land

Good call, srothstein. However, I believe the wording is that a property owner can stop, or end the trespass of another. Once he has been confronted, his trespass is effectively over and he must be allowed safe passage off the property and is no longer trespassing at that point, but leaving under the color of authority. If he refuses to leave, the trespass continues. All the statue says is the property owner can stop the trespass by use of force. If the trespasser is knocked back over the landline in the course business, so be it. But the statute does not deprive the trespasser of any rights, nor does it empower the property owner beyond the use of force to stop the offense. The use of force to physically move the offender to a different location is not authorized. In theory, you could beat the trespasser to a pulp if that's what it took to get him to leave on his own or until he could no longer continue his trespass and consequently it is ended, but you could not drag him off the property. Taking control of someone and forcibly moving them a significant distance is kidnapping. Again, good call.

[srothstein]

I think we agree on most of this, Casingpoint. We might have a disagreement about the use of force to move the person off the property. I agree that if I use force to knock him to the ground and he falls off the property, my legal use of force stops then. I agree I cannot use force if he leaves when he is told to.

But, if he will not leave when told too, I can use force to end the trespass. The only way to end the trespass is to make him leave the property. If I do this by punching him until he decides to leave, that is one way. But there is nothing to say I have to use that type of force. If I grab his arm and start pulling him towards the door, this is force to end the trespass.

I guess if I cannot convince you after this, we can agree to disagree.

[The Annoyed Man]

Megachurches being what they are, they are not the body of christ and they are not the Kingdom of Heaven's court. They are "seeker churches" that only care about bringing in numbers. (which in my view are just entertainment centers to give emotional people emotional experiences devoid of any depth or understanding who the King of Kings is)

Wow. So... uh... You have obviously visited a LOT of "Megachurches" to be able to comment on them all in one fell swoop.
Judge not...
Never mind.

Mind you, I'm not saying Mega-churches are terrific. On the contrary, what I'm saying is that all the churches that have humans as members come up well short. I've seen plenty of problems in small churches as well as large churches. That's what happens when you get a bunch of forgiven, frail people together. Kind of like how there's a lot of infection going around at hospitals.

I hear that the churches that don't have humans are generally a LOT better.

Wow. So....uh...You have obviously visited ALL churches to be able to comment on them ALL in one fell swoop.

I might be wrong, but I took SlowDave's comment to mean that churches are hospitals for sinners, not hotels for saints - and I tend to agree with that sentiment. While we all should be trying to follow Christ's example as well as we are able to, none of us is perfect, and all of us are going to screw things up once in a while. Returning to Doug.38PR's condemnation of mega-churches, I would have to disagree with him. I don't currently attend one myself, but the very first church I attended and joined after getting saved at age 41 was a congregation of 6,000 - Lake Avenue Church, in Pasadena, California. I don't know if that is large enough to qualify as a "mega" church, but it is certainly a VERY large church by any rationale. It was also over 100 years old, and had a fine and well deserved reputation for Christ centered teaching and evangelical works such as missionary support, etc. I think that it is fair to say that, at any given time, a certain percentage of people attending a worship service there are seekers - people whose hearts are being prompted by the Lord to seek Him, and who may eventually make a personal profession of Christian faith and begin to walk with the Lord, but haven't yet done so. I don't see how anybody who calls themselves a Christian believer can call that a bad thing and still be true to Christ's commandment to carry the gospel to non-believers, which includes the subset called "seekers."

Just because a new believer is in his/her 40s when they first believe doesn't mean that they are mature in their faith - yet. And certainly a seeker has no faith. They might want to have faith, but they haven't gotten to the point yet where they are ready to surrender to Christ. (Indeed, many self-professed Christian believers have difficulty surrendering to Christ.) I have yet to see even a church which overtly acknowledges itself to be seeker driven make a theological argument that seeking is equal to salvation. But certainly the message given to seekers and new believers must be theologically simpler to understand, until such point as their growing maturity in faith enables them to understand theologically deeper subjects? You don't see missionaries in Papua New Guinea trying to explain the finer points of pre-trib and post-trib eschatology or Arminianism versus Calvinism to some poor soul who doesn't even know who Jesus is yet.

Micah 6:8 tells us that we are to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God. Justice demands that we not be hasty to condemn mega-churches because they tend to appeal to seekers. Mercy demands that we be merciful toward seekers, particularly since Jesus goes to meet them where they are, not where we think they should be (as he does for us too). And walking humbly with our God demands that we focus on our own walk with God, and not on everyone else's.

And to relate all of this to the original post. . . . it does seem to me, based on what we've been told second hand, that the security guard in question behaved inappropriately with the congregant who was rousted. But in all fairness to the the many ways in which God tries to reach us for His kingdom, that is entirely a separate issue from whether or not mega-churches are a proper expression of Christianity. After all, Christ himself preached to "the multitudes" (not counting women and children) during his Sermon on the Mount.

[Keith B]

Texas is a little unique in the amount of Mega-Churches it has. Coming from the middle Midwest I was used to a large church having 1000 - 1500 members, with the normal 1/3 - 1/2 in attendance. When I moved to the DFW area, we attended a church that was recommended to us. The membership at that time was about 5000 and i ti was very intimidating. On our first visit we weren't even spoken to by the greeters when we entered. We received a call from one of the pastors a couple of days later thanking us for visiting and I advised him of the situation. He was VERY apologetic and asked us to please visit again as that was not normal. We did visit again the next Sunday. During the service, the senior pastor actually scolded the members in the congregation because there were 'visitors last week that didn't get spoken to'. I was hoping he wouldn't point us out!! (He didn't LOL). He said you can at least say 'Hello' to ANYONE you see in the hall or that sits next to you in the pew, especially if you don't know them. While the people you don't recognize may have actually been members longer than you, you can at least say 'Hi' and 'Nice to meet you'. Long story short, we were spoken to that Sunday (even before the pastor's comments) and have been members for over 10 years now.

In the Mega-churches you have to find a place to fit in. You can't know everyone or even try to. You have to find you comfort area and a Sunday school class and activities that you like, and associate with the ones that have the same interests. It is no different than everyday life where you hang with your shooting buddies or go ride motorcycles with a friend that rides. I sing in the choir with friends and my Sunday school class has a phenomenal group of people.

Anyway, my story is, don't discount a Mega-church just because it is large and seems impersonal at first. There should places there for everyone if you search for them.

To get back on topic, I think the situation was handled poorly by the staff. If the gentleman was disrupting the service by jingling keys or change, that should be the usher's job to ask him to step out, NOT a security guard. The ushers should advise him of the noise (the gentleman may have been hard of hearing and not realized it was that noisy) and ask him to desist. As for the security guards function, they should be there to handle unruly individuals or to patrol the outside of the building and watch for people looking into cars or someone trying to work through empty classrooms looking for valuables to take. My opinion is the staff needs to reassess the functions of the ushers and guards and clarify it for the people on duty during that time.

[casingpoint]

The precedent in Texas for evicting trespassers:

LITTLE SANDY HUNTING & FISHING v. BERRY, 194 S.W. 1161 (Tex.Civ.App.-1917)

While we agree with Holmes that it appeared that the hunting and fishing club was the owner of the 34 acres of land and entitled to the possession thereof, and that Berry was in the attitude of a trespasser thereon, we do not agree that it would have been lawful for the club, or that it was lawful for him (Holmes) on its behalf, to forcibly evict Berry from the land. The law as determined by the courts of this state is to the contrary of such a contention.
Sinclair v. Stanley, 69 Tex. 718, 7 S.W. 511; Baker v. Cornelius,
6 Tex. Civ. App. 27, 24 S.W. 949; Crawford v. Thomason,
53 Tex. Civ. App. 561, 117 S.W. 181.

So, if it be admitted that the relation of master and servant existed between the parties (which we do not decide), and that plaintiffs were trespassers, nevertheless THE ACT OF DEFENDANTS IN FORCIBLY EVICTING PLAINTIFFS WAS UNWARRENTED, for the reason that, under the statutes of Texas, defendants could, by resorting to distress proceedings or by sequestration, lawfully repossess the house.


RAY v. DYER, 20 S.W.2d 328 (Tex.Civ.App.-Amarillo 1929)

To this proposition we cannot assent, as we believe it to be in
conflict with the great weight of authority, as it certainly is with the
established policy of our government and the genius of our laws. Adequate
provision has been made in our laws for the recovery of possession of
property which has been forcibly taken or forcibly detained; and, as said
in Warren v. Kelly, 17 Tex. 551, if one holding title to land was
permitted, by himself or his agent, with force and arms, to dispossess one
in peaceable possession, the consequences would be breaches of the
peace, oppression and bloodshed, and trial by the use of the bowie knife
and revolver would be resorted to, instead of the quiet and peaceable
remedy afforded by the due course of law in the judicial tribunals of the
country.

[Gecko45]

That shalt not batter thine rent a cop/usher in thine house of the Lord!

Render to Gecko45 the things that are Gecko45's, and to God the things that are God's.

And Gecko45 saw that it was in caliber .45ACP, and God smiled.

[seamusTX]

LITTLE SANDY HUNTING & FISHING v. BERRY was a real-estate case. Texas and probably every other state has a completely separate body of law for real estate (Property Code).

What that decision says (AFAICT) is that if person A is living in a house and has what appears to be a valid title to it, and B shows up claiming to own the land, B cannot simply evict A by force. They have to settle the issue in court.

I can't find the text of RAY v. DYER, but from the part you quoted, it also seems to be a real-estate case.

Trespassing in violation of PC 30.05 is a completely different matter. That kind of trespass occurs when someone enters land, a building, or a vehicle without any legal claim of right.

Look at PC 9.41 again. It says, "A person in lawful possession ... is justified in using force against another ..."

In the case of a church or any other public place, there is rarely a question about whether the trespasser owns the property or has a claim on it or permission to be there.

(There have been a few interesting cases where the ownership of churches has been contested by members of the congregation, but that is not relevant here.)

- Jim

[casingpoint]

While there are still trespassers to contend with by whatever means necessary, one does not find such eloquence in court opinions today.

Imagine being a judge back then, sitting at your desk, no air conditioning. Flush toilets may not have made it to all corners of Texas by that time. You can't outsource the opinion to India via the internet. The only thing unconstitutional is the dead heat of summer. They must have been on a roll.