http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hydbHB1nF5E

This is Darren Long, mall cop at the Atlanta Metro Mall. His YouTube channel is filled with rather terrible videos of a mall cop letting his gun go to his head. In situations that would have been best served with a cool head and a call to the local 5-0, he instead escalates the situations. This frequently leads to deploying a Taser on an unarmed person who didn’t appear to be posing an immediate threat, or drawing his gun in the middle of an unarmed crowd. How this guy hasn’t been arrested yet is beyond me, but let it be a cautionary tale for those of you who carry. Watch, and be sure never ever to repeat. Special bonus points to the person in the comments who IDs the most crimes committed by the mall cop (assault, brandishing…).

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

116 COMMENTS

  1. Unnecessary Use of Force of the Day?

    This is going to be a reoccurring feature?
    What happened to this being a gun blog?

  3. I heard somebody talking about him on a radio show a while ago. Apparently that mall is in such a dangerous part of town that the local police don’t like going there. They basically let him get away with everything because he’s the only one keeping the place from being total anarchy, because he’s the only one stupid enough to try.

    • Yeah if this is the place Im thinking of over by Five Points, its not anywhere you wanna be. Trouble will find you if you hang out there long enough. Id bet a dollar he wasnt the only one there packing a gun.

      • Per my note at the bottom, I’d bet a lot more than a couple bucks that you’re right.

        • WRONG!!!
          ON PRIVATE PROPERTY YOU DONT HAVE “CIVIL RIGHTS”, YOU ARE A GUEST OR A CUSTOMER. AND WHEN YOU CRAP ON THEIR DOORSTEP, THEY CAN BOOT YOU TO THE CURB, and you dont got no reason to complain, you made them kick you out…dog

        • Well it is not his building either, he is just the security guard and there normally should be a reason kicking people out.

      • So he really DOES own the mall? HELL, kick EVERYBODY out, then! Troublemakers. He needs to get started cleaning the floors, then.

        Forget arrested: why hasn’t he been FIRED?

  5. Too many to count, too close together, but this guy is on a par with that Florida cop who got over-excited by seeing a man’s holster peeking out from under his shirt. If you’re that tightly wound up, you’re in the wrong job!

    Cliff

    • None of us knows the back-story on this incident, but my bet is that Darren Long had had prior interactions with those dittybop punks, such that if we knew about those interactions, we would be surprised that no rounds were fired during this one.

      • The whole point is that Kick Ass Mall Cop (Darien Long’s You Tube Namee) documents the kind of interactions he has with feral degenerates.

        Nick, the point is that he, being a black man, is allowed to face down other blacks who act badly in public. To name bad behavior as such is RACIST if the perpetrator is black. There is also a sub context that nobody is allowed to stand up to feral degenerates.

        Watch this. IMO he’s restrained beyond belief. (He doesn’t taze the hysterical shrieking harpy till she starts beating on him on the head after extended verbal abuse and bumping him with her bosoms.)

        http: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMCfMh9hEWA

        His crime? He asked her to remove her screeching brood from where civilized people were trying to go about their business. I’m not sure how many times he asks her to “back it up” there on private property, but it’s in the triple digits.

        See the offspring are well learning from mom how to be antisocial. I especially like the one who shrieks “that’s why you gay!”

        I didn’t realize he had a gun, unless you’re talking about the taser. It should please many of you that there are reports he has been fired effective the end of this month.

        http://clatl.com/freshloaf/archives/2013/02/01/meet-atlantas-kick-ass-mall-cop

        http://latinrapper.com/blogs/?p=6305

        Really, I think many of the comments here on TTAG are way ignint about this issue. This is why we can’t have nice things and places.

    • He’s the property manager. That area is a known place for drug dealing, loitering, gang bangers and other criminals. he’s attempting to clean it up.

      • Man with a taser asks you to leave… then leave. Why argue? No shopping experience is worth that kind of static cling. I like this guy.

    • They broke into his house a few months ago, stole a good chunk of his gear and his holster.

      And they’ve thrown rocks and other things at him too.

      He’s been attacked, thats why he’s got the M&P, the Taser, and the body armor, as well as tthe go-pro

  9. In the related videos that appear at the end, there’s one where this guy explains why he rushed up on that group and tried to kick them out. Apparently at least one of them had been kicked out and told never to set foot on the property. So it wasn’t as random as it seems…but the rest of the situation is still messed up.

    Speaking of messed up, what’s with that mall? Looks like the kind of place I wouldn’t be caught dead in…it looks like the kind of place where people *are* caught dead.

    • After reading the AJC article, I’m inclined to cut this guy some slack. The mall sounds like a free-fire zone – drug dealing, prostitution, assaults, etc. He’s the only person trying to keep out the criminal element. I may not agree with his methods, but I respect his purpose, and his commitment,.

  15. You’re about 2 months late to the party here. From what I remember this guy IS the property owner, and this is how he chooses to minimize the scum on his property. Someone started an online donation campaign for him and they raised around $70k or so.

  16. Listening to these people “talk” makes me sick to my stomach. Learn to speak like an upstanding and rational adult.

    • “People” should be in quotes as well. They’re people like pigeon shooting is “hunting.” Or perhaps dynamiting fish in a barrel is fishing after all?

  17. I wonder if he has trauma plates duct taped to his back so he can lay down supressing fire while his female sniper can shoot the Chechnyan terrorists trying to violate the mayors nephew.

    • TRUTH!
      if you have never spent time in this sort of enviroment, you have no basis or right to make judgements about what happens there.
      what is ok for security and police in this sort of neighborhood is completely different than what is ok in suburban areas. like that or not, its true.

  19. Sounds like what the Obama may yell at some unsuspecting White House visitors whenever they reactivate the tours.

  20. Aggravated Assault with a deadly weapon
    Assault 2nd degree with a firearm
    Threatening 1st degree
    Unlawful restraint 1st degree
    Breach of peace 1st degree
    Intimidation
    Criminal use of firearm or electronic defense weapon

    • That all sound good when the police or anyone who give a fuck is around but if you read all the info readily available about this area and this guy in particular the cops do not even bother coming to calls from this area cause you know its like Chicago inner city. they don’t really care about Mr. Long or the outstanding citizens that frequent his establishment.

  23. After watching some more of his videos and reading more of the backstory… I commend the guy.

    He’s actually MAKING a difference.

    • I agree. It’s the same drug dealers in every video. In one video one of them pulls a gun on him. This is how cops get in trouble. People only see that video moment but, if you look at the whole picture and past encounters, there may be a good reason for them to over react. I got to give the guy a lot of credit. He’s dealing with a cesspool.

  24. Easybeans is right.

    Spend a day in the guy’s shoes before you castigate him. Being “nice” doesn’t get you very far with most criminals and scumbags.

    • The metro mall, in Alanta Georgia.

      By the way, he’s the property manager, not a “Mall cop” He’s on his own property,trying to protect it

  27. Wow, that Mall Cop is one psycho MF. I hope they tag his ass and the guy he tased ends up owning him. WTF!!? People like that are actually out on the street without adult supervision?

  28. As someone who worked as a mall security guard, these types are everywhere in that job. I never wanted to be a cop but the ones that did would get in everyone’s faces and try to get them to attack them so they could strike back.

    • I’m currently employed in the Mall Security field. I am pursuing a career in LE. I have to agree and disagree with your statement that “the ones that did would get in everyone’s faces and try to get them to attack them…” is both true on both sides and false. I’ve been through an actual peace officer academy and but am waiting to get a job until after I obtain my degree. I don’t get up in peoples faces. I may be a smartass at times and use sarcasm, but i don’t intentionally bait people into hitting me.

      This can be said about a few retired military types. I work with two that are always getting in people’s faces and they don’t want to be LEOs either. Some people let the so-called “power” go to their heads, some don’t.

      I’m one of the very few that keep their cool. You want to see some out of control mall cops? check out some videos on youtube of some overreacting, chasing, and swearing at a patron for video taping a fight. Just like in LE, there are d!ckheads in Priv Sec.

      • Dear Mr.Blart.

        If for some reason you couldn’t just walk out any Junior College and get a job in LE, you really need to get a self-actualization handle on how truly and completely messed up you are.

        Sincerely,

        We hire all sorts of criminals, but you are a trainwreck even to us.

        • A degree in criminology will help him move upward – become a detective perhaps – and is much easier to obtain before he becomes a cop. Why the hate?

          Y’know, the vast majority of the cops with whom I’ve interacted are good joes doing a hard job. In a society in which it’s normal to hate someone, that someone just might let it get to ’em.

          Just sayin’.

        • Don’t listen to the hater above, in the Midwest there are several hundred applicants for every open LEO position, the haters seem to think it’s the other way around…I’d like to see them get hired

  29. Is this really the best guy to be calling out? Im gonna go ahead and acknowledge the elephant in the room and say that he’s not exactly dealing with members of the National Honor Society here. I suppose y’all really hate Dirty Harry around here too.

  30. The man is dealing with SAVAGES on a daily basis – he should be commended. TTAG is wimping out.

  31. It IS private property, and from reading the AJC article, he hasn’t been chased off by the drug dealers who scared off the last couple of guards. It’s a whole different world there, that, absent the rowhouses, reminds me of “The Wire”.

  32. That guy isn’t bad. If you were in the same situation I wouldn’t blame you of wrong doing. You do not understand the people/culture of that area and the overall situation.

    Most of those people cannot be reasoned with and act “hard” in scenarios a grown adult wouldn’t even place themselves in. On top of that, police in that area do not do their jobs and when they do come it takes a long time.

    He is very straight forward with how he treats those immature people. Most of those people he knows. He has authority of that domain and they know this, yet they choose to cause issues on private property.

    If that was your property, I’m sure you wouldn’t want drug dealers, gang members and the general criminal doing their business there.

    You know not all people can be taught through words, they need to learn through actions.

    I say he is doing a rather good job as private security. Police are for the courts. Different situation here. We need more no BS type people like this guy.

    • The third world, in my experience, is a fairly safe place to be. If I was forced to make a gross generalization it would be avoid large cities, on all continents. I feel safer being the only OFWG for 100 miles than I do when it’s only 1 mile.

  34. They just swaped “Das rasis” with “You uncle tom!”

    Meet the new phrase, same as the old phrase.

    • The phrase “Uncle Tom” is an epithet for a person who is slavish and excessively subservient to perceived authority figures, particularly a black person who behaves in a subservient manner to white people

      I’m very much aware of the phrase. I’ve been called one multiple times, for working hard to make something of myself.

      Those thugs would be the one’s calling him an uncle tom(As he is black), instead of saying it’s racist(If he were white, the original response I was posting to)

    • The property manager was never being “subservient to perceived authority figures”, he was the authority figure. So how exactly would that phrase apply to him? Had they complied the people the manager tazed/threatened could be labeled as such, but not the manager himself.

    • it wouldn’t. I never said the thugs were correct in their assessment.

      I was attempting to make a satirical remark that regardless of the color of the property manager, they’d always have something bad to say because that is what they do: find reasons to get mad and validate themselves, and that regardless of the color, they would whoop and holler and be upset.

      I see it wasn’t as clear as I’d first hoped it would be.

    • But the amount of whooping in hollering would have been entirely different. The reverends would have come out and condemned the use of force and organized protests. Race hustlers like Jackson and Sharpton would be up in arms. The black panthers would have put a bounty on his head. Obama would say that if he had a son, they would be just like those in this video. The local prosector would convene a grand jury. And a lawyer would have stepped forward and filed a lawsuit on a contingency basis. Especially if it occoured with such regularity as these youtube videos show.

  37. funny how many of you are against this guy who has the right to evict people from private property. Plus I am sure they would leave all nice and quiet if he was respectful and calm to them first.

  38. Unnecessary use of force? I think he was justified; except for drawing his firearm. I would, however, give him a little room to bend the law in a sketchy ghetto situation like that. Being physical and using force is the only thing hood thugs seem to understand. I pray for his safety.

  39. I come here because you guys are the up to date and the most pro gun site I visit. To see this headline i feel a bit let down by you guys. If you follow the video link you will see multiple altercation with the same guy in the video above, also this guy has told this a hole to leave and not come back to the establishment multiple times and he continues to defy him, Its the same as someone coming into your place of work on a daily basis and assaulting you in a place were you have the right to be add to that that his boys were getting ready to jump him. as a potential juror I see the threat of great bodily harm and or death present you don’t know what this guys might or might not be capable of doing or what weapons they might be carrying.

    Just look at it as if it was a cop in this situation and the same guys were not following his orders, how is it any different. how does a cop have more authority to remove the person that has been known to assault him multiple times previously.

    Its about time people take some personal action and step up to the call cause if we don’t it might be you someone does not come to help when there same animal are assaulting you. (I know most of us here practice our second amendment right and would be ready to face a threat like this but keep in mind the term the sheepdog and the sheep. would you let the sheep be slaughter?

  40. Wow, you really knee-jerked on this one, Leghorn. This guy should be commended for doing his best to clean up the area he is employed to manage (he’s the property manager) and you’re here critiquing him without doing your homework and checking his background. You come at him like he’s some corrupt cop when he’s just a private citizen defending his property. The local business owners LOVE this guy for keeping the drug dealing, disorderly scum in check.

    This article is one hell of a let down. Nick, you can do better than this.

  41. I always get a giggle out of black on black violence! I get a bigger giggle out of those that try to claim you give up your rights when entering private property! This “private property” is public access, it is not a case where there was breaking and entering, in the case of public access, you have been invited. If this mall is so dangerous and there is so much crime, the city should shut it down, not allow some freak with a mental problem run roughshod over the law, at this point and time, he was the most dangerous thing in the mall and he was the only one committing an illegal activity. At least he knew how to hold his firearm! (sarcasm)

      • Freudian slip, perhaps.

        And the people who he told to get out have been banned from said “Public Access”, so no they were not invited. They were specifically told to leave and stay away..

        As for the City Shutting down anything, giving them the ability to shut down a location “For the greater good” is the same thing as them confiscating weapons “For the greater good”. They need to clean up their trash, not burn the house down because there’s too much of it.

    • I’m thinking it’s the county that would have to do the closing down. Not many malls are in cities.

  43. In this case the only “Unnecessary Use of Force” is using this blog to smear the name of a man brave enough to defend his property.

    • I’m thinking Nick just dislikes any form of law enforcement.

      M’self, I’ll respect the uniform, and give the officer wearing it the benefit of the doubt unless and until they prove unworthy. Innocent until proven guilty, hmmm?

      In a world full o’ Liberty Valence wannabes, the guys who wear a tin target, as a group, have my respect.

    • +1
      This guy works in a hellhole, I’d like to see the haters on here work there for just a day and see how that changes their perspectives.

  44. Why doesn’t he just declare the Atlanta Metro Mall to be a gun-free, drug-free zone? I mean, surely a few well-placed signs around the perimeter of the mall would quickly restore it to its former glory. Criminals who brazenly break laws and mouth off to armed security would certainly be intimidated by a white sign with a picture of a pistol with a red line through it.

    I’ll even bet if they made the mall gun-free and drug-free, that they would get a Starbucks and Apple store in no time.

  45. I like it. Maybe the good people of Chicago could learn a thing or two and take the war to the gangbangers. I would give them a permanent “not guilty” card.

    I’m still shocked the mall cop used the “n” word…

  46. As someone from GA, I have seen safer places than this “mall” in the Middle East. That’s not a joke.

    The place is overrun with gang activity, drug dealing, prostitution and other illegal activity.

    This guy is trying to clean it up.

    APD’s response time to something like this would be over 20 minutes to this area of town, easily.

  47. All i have to say is…..

    “You better back up!”

    he’s allowed to defend his own property, but damn :/

  48. It’s funny how all the critics sound like DiFi and Chuck the Schmuck. Ask yourself how you would act if some undesirable came on to your property.

  49. What surprised me most about this video is that there aren’t 10 guards in body armor with ARs patrolling this place. This mall makes Afghanistan look like a nice place to live.

    -ted

  50. How is it that this guy hasn’t been popped yet by the very people featured on his videos? This IS Hot-Lanta after all, where the thugs don’t think even once about killin.

  51. Yea, this headline is completely misleading. A little investigation and you will find this guy is dealing with a cesspool of civilization and trying to make a difference. He should be commended.

  52. Nick, GA doesn’t have a brandishing law. If you point a gun at someone it’s assault, unless you are acting in a DGU. Just an FYI

  53. This is a place police won’t go unless someone is murdered.
    There was a video of his that got a lot of attention where he tasered a woman in front of her kids.
    She was charged with child endangerment, assault, and so on. And convicted. And not only that, she deserved it and then some.
    Like it or not, the law is on his side.

  54. I might add, you need some additional training if you didn’t spot the guy who is very likely packing a piece. He telegraphs it.

    Look at the video again. If you’ve actually been in one of the lovely urban areas of the US, he’s pretty easy to spot.

    Hint: He’s not the guy up front, shooting off his mouth and waving his arms around.

  57. How dare you! These animals cause trouble every day which is why he records it. The people he confronted and tased were reoccuring problems and he banned them.

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