PIRSAC Meeting 9/12/2013

PIRSAC Meeting 9/12/2013

By Jack Belich, FCI

FALI Secretary

The Florida Department of Agriculture’s Private Investigation, Recovery and Security Advisory Council (PIRSAC) held their quarterly meeting on Thursday, September 12, 2013 at the Daytona Beach Resort & Conference Center.

Many items of importance were discussed, but perhaps the "hot topic” item was the announcement by the Division of Licensing Director, Grea Bevis, that he would be including in his annual legislative request to the legislature, an item that would expand the permitted firearms carried by those who hold a G license (Statewide Firearms License).

Private investigators and security officers, who also hold a G license, are presently limited to carrying a .38 caliber, .380, or a 9mm handgun.  Director Bevis’ new proposal would add .40 and .45 ACP handguns to the list of firearms that G license holders would be allowed to carry.

FALI members have asked for a change in the statute to permit larger caliber firearms to be carried for many years.  Your FALI Board of Directors, as well as several of our lobbyists, have spoken in favor of this proposal many times, but getting an existing statute changed, takes a lot of hard work and, until this point, we had other legislative issue to push through.  Adding this expansion of calibers to our legislation for Increased Penalties for Unlicensed Activities could have affected its passage.  So we where waiting for this year or the DOL to pick it up which has now happened.

Next stop for this measure will be after the Florida legislature convenes in early 2014, when the Florida DOL will present a package of "clean up bills” for legislative consideration.  With the consent of the Florida legislature, this proposal will become law and be effective on July 1, 2014.

Director Bevis related to the PIRSAC council that the DOL is still working undercover and compiling evidence of the illegal selling of certificates of completion of firearms training and that they now have indications that over 1,050 current G license holders may be involved, and at least 16 state licensed K firearms instructors.  All of these licensees will face an administrative review and possible criminal charges.

Bevis indicated that this problem of selling certificates of completion is much worst that first thought, stating; "I’m afraid that we’ve just scratched the surface” and that using the combined investigative efforts of the DOL investigators, with the Law Enforcement Division of the Florida Department of Agriculture, "we’re going to put them in jail”.   Bevis said the agency would continue to send teams of undercover inspectors and investigators into the field to handle either administrative sanctions or, in some cases, arrests of the individuals involved.

Director Bevis told of one unidentified individual who receive her original G license fraudulently and three subsequent renewals by simply buying her certificates of completion.  

"This is disturbing”, Bevis said, and "we are going to solve this problem and hold people accountable.”  

Bevis also announced that the DOL and the Agriculture Department Law Enforcement Division have made their first arrest of an individual posing as a licensed private investigator, when in fact, he was working unlicensed.  Bevis promised to continue to work to eliminate unlicensed activity under the newly enacted law for "Increased Penalties for Unlicensed Activities” that went into effect on July 1, 2013. 

At the last PIRSAC meeting in June, 2013, Director Bevis announced that the DOL was considering a revision to the rules and regulations pertaining to G firearms training, qualification, requalification, and possibly K license changes.  The PIRSAC council then appointed FALI President Tim O’Rourke to review the DOL proposal.

O’Rourke, who is also a licensed K State Firearms instructor and a former principal of the S2 Institute in Clearwater, presented his review to the full PIRSAC group.  O’Rourke was, generally speaking, in favor of updating the firearms rules and regulations, but pointed out several inconsistencies and several problem areas in the current proposed manual.  The PIRSAC group thanked O’Rourke for his input and Director Bevis said that the DOL would continue to refine their proposal.

Representatives of the Recovery Agent organization, Florida CARS, reported on their continuing efforts to require more training for law enforcement officers on Florida statutes pertaining to repossessions and on their efforts to establish a uniform law enforcement notification system that would make it easier to Recovery Agents to notify law enforcement when a legal repossession has occurred.  There were also several reports of unlicensed repossession agents working in Florida and the DOL requested the assistance of all E and EE licensed individuals to report these individuals to the DOL.

Director Bevis also announced that the Orlando DOL regional office has moved to a new location and that a new office building is under construction in Tallahassee and that when completed in the second week of November, three separate DOL divisions will be reunited in the new location.

End Report