Disney Security

Friday, August 18, 2000
by Kevin Yee

Let's start with the strolling onstage thing. As mentioned earlier, the basic problem here is that as a working employee, you're covered by insurance and worker's compensation, and so on. Disneyland cannot, and should not, be paying out injury claims if you're not actually working and you get hurt on property (arbitration or lawsuits are a different matter). So for legal reasons, you have to go sign in properly at the front gate, and you're legally something like a regular guest then.

Security watches for people sneaking onstage for just this reason. You're told at Orientation that technically this is grounds for termination, but I've known people to get off with a warning, especially if they plead ignorant. Still, I've also known people who had more discipline (written warning) administered for just this reason, too, so this is Russian Roulette should you try it.

Naturally, a big part of the job for Security is to keep the public out of areas they shouldn't be. This means sneaking backstage as well as trying to sneak into Disneyland itself. The latter is really pretty hard to do; very tall fences ring the park and they are hard to climb. The only normal points of egress are controlled by guards in security booths. And once you sneak past all that, you're still backstage — would you know how to find the way onstage???

Those fences. I've had a guard tell me that parts of it were motion-wired, so that the park would know if someone is climbing it. That could be. But even if it is true, it wasn't always. I recall one grad night I was working in the early 1990s when I drove along Harbor Boulevard, and right there in plain sight was someone climbing that very tall fence there. He'd made it over, in fact, and was descending onto the utility road below. I feel he would have gotten very lost, but maybe he would have been okay. He never got the chance — I told the guard at Harbour House what I saw, he radioed it in, and I think they got him like five minutes later.

It's not just guards, fences, and mazelike backstage areas, it's dogs. Big dogs. Guard dogs. Yes, Disneyland, has Doberman pinchers and German shepherds, and, so I've heard, a smaller bomb dog as well. These dogs used to be housed in their own little kennel out back by the fireworks launchers and the Circle D corral for the livestock, but I have no idea if this is still true. The dogs patrol at night. With a human guard of course.

Security is, as you might suspect, largely made up of ex-cops and current schoolteachers. Both groups of people are skilled at moving crowds, keeping order, and keeping their heads (the teachers also enjoy work hours that, like for students, seems tailor-made for their profession).

But Security is not about control so much as reigning in chaos. The watchwords are to defuse a situation before it can become serious, to "kill them with a smile" rather than a club, and to radio for help — an entire TON of it — when a situation really has gone awry.

The guards are not, you see, armed at all. They have walkie-talkies, and some of them are tough, but their job is ever so much more psychological than physical. So when a problem breaks out — like a fight — they radio for everyone to come. All of them. Twenty or thirty guards will swarm the area. Now those are some odds, weapon or not!

Serious problems will warrant the Anaheim Police Department (APD). Disneyland has had, off and on over the years, an APD unit stationed at the park for the bigger problems. They typically just hang out at the security center.

Ah yes, the fabled DL jail. No, it has no bars. It's back behind Main Street, a fairly old and nondescript corner of an aging building. The walls inside are painted but mostly bare, and there are but a couple small rooms for questioning / detaining. Over the years DL has been accused (and sued for!) illegally detaining guests who allegedly misbehave. In my experience, which admittedly is not at all comprehensive but nevertheless consists of a decade of observation, this is the result of whiny idiots who did something wrong and blame Disneyland for getting caught.

That said, some of the internal investigative units of the park (secret shoppers etc) who work with Security can go overboard in their McCarthyistic quest to find CMs who steal from the company. They can be quite badgering.

But I was talking about APD. Problems do show up that transcend the "lost child" or "he touched my girlfriend's butt" variety. I saw one family back by the Security headquarters one day. The father was a white male about 35 years old, and he was being led toward the office while his mother yelled at the guards and ignored her kids. The man, agitated at knowing he was going to jail for whatever he did, lashed out at the guard who had been holding his arm and guiding him.

The guard staggered, and in leaped about ten guards who poured out of the office. The sound of flesh-cracking fistfights does not often penetrate backstage, so this was fascinating. They had the guy down in a flash, and though they swarmed him, they didn't beat on him once he was down. In fact, they didn't throw a punch — they pushed and "judo'ed" him down. He screamed into the pavement that he was going to sue (which I found ridiculous, I saw him throw the first and only punch) while his wife screamed bloody murder and his preteen children bawled loudly.

No, I don't envy Security.

And their job may soon get harder. The Security costume has always varied by land — Frontierland would wear a fanciful sheriff's outfit, while Main Street had keystone cops, and so on. But soon the costume will be "softened" to remove the police-like appearance.

And this is good how? I understand the goal is to reduce confrontation, but please, enough is enough. The trend in recent years has been away from confrontational attitudes, and the result has been some of the teenage groupings that border on ghettos at times. It's almost scary to walk through some of these areas at night!

There's a lot more to Security — parking lot patrol, eagle-eye nests to watch the lot, CM thievery and countermeasures, and lots of good juicy stories, but I do have to leave something for future articles, don't I?

Are you a CM or a former CM? I would love to hear and share your stories! E-mail me! Stories and comments you submit become property of and may be published on this site; we normally don't publish last names of current CMs, but if you wish to remain anonymous altogether or do not want me to share your stories, please let me know when you e-mail me. — Shoshana

NOTE: The views and opinions expressed in reader-contributed stories do not reflect those of Cast Place or MousePlanet.

CM – Cast member; company lingo for “employee.” 

Empowerment Evolution – The 1995 attempt by newer park management to introduce modern accountability and market forces into the stodgy Disneyland methodology and power hierarchies. The name was meant to “empower” rank and file employees by removing layers of their management, though now there are more managers than ever.

TPO – Theme Park Operations; the division of the Disneyland hierarchy that actually works in the theme park itself.

TDA – Team Disney Anaheim; the name of the on-site administration building.

Area manager – used to be responsible for an entire land, with all business divisions in the area reporting to him.

Area supervisor – the immediate boss for location supervisors who divide up a department of intelligently grouped locations. The area supervisors in turn reported to the area manager. Nowadays all supervisors and area supervisors have been replaced by managers and assistant managers — the same idea, but smaller “business units" than a department; usually just one location in fact.

RFT – “A” status; a full-time hourly employee.

RPT – “B” status; an hourly employee five days a week but just not quite 40 hours usually.

CR – “C” status; an hourly employee who works weekends year-round and five days a week during all school holiday periods (including summer and Christmas break).

CT – a part-time hourly employee who works five days a week during all school holiday periods (including summer and Christmas break). No seniority, so shifts worked are usually quite short.

Locate the employment center to fill out an application, and they will call you for an interview (dress nicely, just shy of an actual suit). Once there, follow these rules, in this order of importance:

1. Smile and be very friendly. They want outgoing people.
2. Do not let the group interview throw you off balance. They want outgoing people who can “perform” a little bit.
3. Do not worry about job (in)experience. They don't care. They want friendly people, not experienced and/or hardened people.
4. Do your best to convince them you already have a Disney attitude: you want to work with people, you're a team player, and you would consider this a dream job (however, don't overdo it on the crazy-Disney-fan side either). Strike a nice balance.
5. Did I mention the importance of a smile?