During Public Disorder, Retail Security Depends on What Happens After the Alert
An alert about unusual activity outside a store leaves several decisions unresolved. Someone must verify what is happening, determine whether employees or customers face a threat, and decide who should act. Across multiple locations, those decisions also need to reach the people responsible for each site without turning an uncertain observation into a wider, unverified warning.
In comments supplied to Security Guys News, Cate Manfe, National Retail Business Development Lead at Hanwha Vision, emphasized the relationship between real-time information and established response procedures. Her perspective puts video monitoring within a broader operational task: identifying a developing incident, coordinating action and preserving the evidence. The effectiveness of that process depends on responsibilities established before an incident begins.
Real-Time Information Needs a Defined Response
“Having real-time information paired with processes to act on in specific scenarios can make a significant difference during civil unrest,” Manfe said. “Video monitoring and proactive notifications can help security teams identify unusual activity, assess potential threats, and coordinate responses across multiple locations.”
Her comments identify distinct stages that a security operation needs to connect. Detecting activity gives a team a reason to investigate; assessing it establishes what the available evidence supports. Coordinating a response then requires a decision about who receives the information and what they are expected to do. For a retailer, that distinction matters when an incident develops near several stores or when a central team oversees geographically dispersed locations. A notification needs enough context to support a local assessment, including which site is affected and what has been observed. It should also make clear what remains uncertain, rather than presenting every detection as a confirmed threat.
Verification Comes Before Escalation
“It’s important to note that technology is only one piece of this equation,” Manfe said. “Retailers need clear protocols for who receives alerts, how information is shared and verified, escalation paths, and how footage is preserved as evidence.”
That places verification within the response process itself. An organization assessing its readiness should be able to identify who reviews an initial warning, who can escalate it and how the assessment reaches the relevant site. A shared dashboard can make information available, but availability alone does not establish ownership of the next action.
The same distinction applies to communications between security teams and store personnel. An instruction should be distinguishable from an advisory, and both should identify the location and circumstances to which they apply. Otherwise, distributing information more widely can leave recipients with more notifications and little clarity about their responsibilities.
Connecting Video Intelligence to Police Dispatch
A separate announcement from Camect and 3Si Security Systems addresses the handoff between private security monitoring and public safety. The companies’ October 27 announcement describes a partnership connecting Camect’s AI video intelligence with 3Si’s DirectToDispatch platform. Ron Grubbs, VP of Sales Business Development at Camect, said in the release that the integration would let users “maintain control of their video data while securely sharing relevant information” with first responders.
Camect’s published workflow places authorized human review between detection and information sharing. Security or monitoring personnel assess an alert and determine whether it represents a qualifying threat; relevant information about a confirmed qualifying crime can then be prepared for dispatch, subject to supported capabilities and authorization requirements. Dispatchers use that information through established agency procedures.
The announcement illustrates one approach to connecting detection with escalation. It does not establish results for managing public disorder: the cited materials provide no measured reduction in response times or outcomes from such an incident. Its relevance to Manfe’s comments lies in the sequence it describes, with verification and authorized sharing forming part of the workflow rather than being left implicit.
Multiple Locations Require Clear Ownership
Manfe’s emphasis on coordination across locations raises a practical question for retail security leaders: which decisions belong to the central team, and which remain with the affected store? A central operation may have visibility across the portfolio, while local personnel have information about conditions inside and immediately outside their premises. A response plan needs a way to bring those perspectives together.
Testing that arrangement means following an alert through the people expected to handle it. The exercise should establish whether the site receives a usable assessment, whether escalation responsibilities are understood and how changes in the situation are communicated. It should also examine what happens when several locations need attention at once.
These are operational questions rather than performance results demonstrated by the supplied comments. Manfe did not provide a customer case study or measured comparison of incident response. Her contribution instead identifies the procedures that retailers should examine alongside their monitoring capabilities.
Evidence Preservation Starts During the Incident
Manfe included footage preservation among the protocols retailers need to establish. That makes recording part of incident management, rather than a task that begins only after the immediate situation has passed. The organization needs to know which material should be retained and who is responsible for making it available for subsequent review.
For a multi-site retailer, an assessment should consider how relevant footage is identified across locations and how it relates to alerts and decisions made during the incident. It should also examine access permissions and the process for sharing material with authorized recipients. Capturing an event and preserving a usable record of it are related responsibilities, but they require separate checks.
Readiness Means Practicing the Handoffs
“There is significant planning that can help alleviate some of the stress these situations bring for leaders and employees,” Manfe said. “The most advanced technology is only as effective as the people and processes behind it.” A useful readiness exercise would therefore begin with an observation and follow it through verification, escalation, site communication and evidence preservation. Each handoff should identify a responsible person and the information needed to make the next decision. That gives security leaders a way to assess whether their monitoring investment supports an executable response when an incident develops.
