I recently watched a fight at a well known Adelaide hotel in which two bouncers were being outrageously attacked by three young men. The bouncers did well to hold the attackers off for around four minutes, but when no help had arrived they began fighting back. What else could they do? But if someone had been killed, there would have been hell to pay. That approach is of dubious worth. When traditional policing was swapped for community policing, there were some hard facts that needed to be faced.
One of those facts is that the quality of policing by security staff will never be at the same standard as that of fully fledged police officers. Another is the fact that few men will dare to take a swing at a copper, but bouncers are seen as fair game. Young males with a desire to prove their manhood will much more readily challenge them.
It could be argued that there is an expectation of professionalism from bouncers that would keep fights to a bare minimum. That is a fair statement, but when one does occur you cannot reasonably declare that they have failed to meet the standard since 'bare minimum' doesn't mean elimination. Booze affected males can be determined to fight no matter what. Some don't even need booze.
It is equally unreasonable to thrust an onus on them to end a fight without hurting anyone. There comes a point at which they are entitled to defend themselves. You surely cannot write into a bouncer's job description "get head kicked in as required."
The problem here is that in the absence of video evidence bouncers can be hard-pushed to prove that they were acting in self-defence even when they were. When someone is lying dead on a footpath it is very easy to create an innuendo that a bouncer went 'over the top' and demand that he prove otherwise.
The big danger is that stacking sentiment against security staff is likely to encourage even more muscle-headed males to fight with them. It could lead to a suspicion that they will be too scared to fight back. That in turn could lead to more deaths.
There can be no excuse for fighting with a bouncer. If someone is asked to leave an establishment they must do so. Neither should the fact that the establishment sold them the alcohol that fuelled their bravado to the point where they elected to fight diminish their responsibility in the slightest. That is simply hand-balling ownership of their behavior to someone else.
A clear message to this effect by the police and the courts would be a positive step in the right direction.
