For some immigrant security guards, just doing their jobs brings harassment

On Saturday, Marin Glamuzina was standing at the entrance of a Sports Direct shop on North Earl Street. He’s tall and lithe, in a security uniform and a high-vis vest. 

It’s just five minutes before he can take a break. His colleague nods that he can go early.

He’s not doing well, said Glamuzina, strolling towards a nearby café.

In July 2024, Glamuzina escorted out three teenage girls zooming about on scooters in Blanchardstown Shopping Centre – where he worked at the time. 

Another time, he had spread his arms to stop them from sliding into the shopping centre, he says.

Soon, a guy turned up, whipped out his phone and began filming and accusing him of picking up one of his children and abusing them. 

“After several days, those girls, whenever they saw me, they said, ‘paedo, paedo’”, he says.

Though he has not been contacted about accusations like that by the Gardaí, he says. He would welcome any such investigation, he said.

Glamuzina eventually left that site and ended up on North Earl Street. The fresh, undated recirculation of the year-ago video on X and Facebook has intensified daily harassment and name-calling, he says, even as he works elsewhere. 

He often faces abuse and accusations on the job when he catches people stealing or asks them to leave for breaking the rules, he said. 

Kayur Prajapati, who works security at a nearby EuroGiant on North Earl Street, says confronting shoplifters and troublemakers triggers similar responses for him, too.

Just recently, he spotted a woman stealing, and when he and his colleagues approached her, she screamed, ‘You people are paedophiles’, said Prajapati, standing outside EuroGiant. “It’s like a joke to them, the word.”

Both Prajapati and Glamuzina say they’re just doing their jobs, keeping customers safe and preventing theft from the shops they’re minding. In recent years, they have found that their work comes at a cost, they say.

A spokesperson for An Garda Síochána has not yet addressed queries sent on Saturday, including one asking if there are plans to improve the safety of immigrant security workers in the north inner-city. 

On the daily 

At noon on Saturday, Mandy McKenna was checking customers’ bags as they trickled out of the Guineys store on North Earl Street.

She has brightly dyed hair, and wears a walkie-talkie on her waist.   

Several days before, a couple lifted stuff from Guineys and glided into the EuroGiant across the street, she said. 

“Then she assaulted the security at the EuroGiant,” said McKenna. That’s Prajapati.

McKenna says she tried to take back the stuff, but the couple wouldn’t budge. The woman launched at her, clutching and pulling a shock of her hair, shows video footage.  

Earlier, Glamuzina had played it on his phone.

“Then she damaged property belonged to me which was my radio,” says McKenna, pointing to her walkie-talkie.

McKenna says she faces violence and verbal abuse, but it’s not as bad as what immigrant security guards like Prajapati and Glamuzina experience. “Every day on this street. It’s a disgrace.”

People throw around serious accusations of paedophilia against them without any proof, said McKenna. 

She points to Glamuzina, who’s standing nearby. “Every day, he’s abused,” she said.

Since old footage of his encounter with a guy about those scooter-riding teens resurfaced, McKenna says, customers at their shop come up to ask about him. 

She tells the story again and again, said McKenna, that those kids weren’t allowed to be gliding on scooters indoors. 

“This man was doing his job. We all have to answer to, you know, a superior,” said McKenna. 

She’s only seen kindness from Glamuzina, said McKenna. 

In a joint statement, Dublin Communities Against Racism (DCAR) and Independent Workers’ Union of Ireland (IWU) – Glamuzina is a member –  condemned the harassment campaign against him.

“We urge members of the public and union members to consider the consequences of spreading unverified information online,” it says.

IWU continues to offer support to “any and all security officers and workers facing disgusting racist abuse and assault”, the statement says.

The cavalry is not coming

In the café across the road, Glamuzina shows the marks of shoplifters’ attacks on his face and hands.  

His nose is covered in red streaks. “Someone cut my nose.”

He has a college degree in history and geography, said Glamuzina outside, holding an unlit cigarette. 

But he’s big into security, keeping people safe and doing loss prevention, he said. “I love my job.”

On 1 July, when he had had enough of verbal abuse, he called 999, he says. 

The cops, he says, kind of brushed him off. When he complained about being constantly accused of paedophilia. He says one of them said, “This is freedom of speech.”

A spokesperson for An Garda Síochána has not yet addressed queries, including one about that. It’s looking into them, though, they said.

Glamuzina hasn’t opened a case on the Gardaí’s Hate Crime reporting portal. He said he didn’t know about it.

He deals with the cops all the time because of his work. Some of them are kind, but some of them can be harsh, he said.

He shows a video of a clutch of young boys jumping and grabbing a bunch of stuff at Sports Direct. Glamuzina tries to stop them. He doesn’t touch them, though he looks like he’s talking to them.

When the guards arrived, he says, he was the one being accused of intimidation. 

One time, a guard told him something like, “Call your Croatian police. If you’re not happy, go home,” Glamuzina said.

Private front lines 

People online have tracked him down and found his home address, he reckons because his name is on his security badge, says Glamuzina. 

Sometimes, he worries about being murdered, he said. 

Mick O’Keeffe, an online anti-immigrant hardliner in Waterford, posted the shopping centre video from last year to his over 218,000 followers on 29 June. 

“This fella should not be in Ireland, not to mention working as a security guard around children,” says his post.

Says a comment at the top: “The security game in Ireland has been taken over by unvetted migrants.”

To get a security licence, private security workers go through Garda vetting under the Private Security Services Act 2004.

Glamuzina has written to a lawyer, who wrote back that he has a case on several grounds, laid all of them out in an email, and apologised for what he’s been through, the email shows. 

Glamuzina said he was hoping to find one to represent him pro bono.

Joe Mooney, community activist and a member of DCAR, said it had voiced concerns about the safety of immigrant security workers last year. Those remarks still stand today, he said.

“Those who have been promoting hate towards immigrants are also targeting workers and setting them up for attacks,” says DCAR’s May 2024 statement.

Glamuzina shows email after email from customers who’d written about witnessing the harassment he’d faced while working at Blanchardstown Shopping Centre. 

He’d gone to eyewitnesses after some incidents, asking them to email what they’d witnessed, with their name and contact information, worried no one would believe him otherwise, he says.

One email underscores the difficulties of swallowing verbal abuse by teenagers while keeping your cool and avoiding getting physical. 

“It appeared to me that the security mans job must be very difficult as he cannot touch the underage teens and try and maintain his cool in very stressful circumstances,” says the email.

Another email says they witnessed Glamuzina being falsely accused by a woman of staring at her. “He was just glancing around. I was directly in front of him.”

The woman called him “pedo” and “rapist”, it says.

He has a partner, pays his taxes, doesn’t want to go on the dole, said Glamuzina. He shows a video of himself saving an older guy from violent pickpockets near his workplace a few months back.

Still, to people online and those passing by North Earl Street in real life, he said, he’s a villain.

“He sexually assaulted a girl, him,” shows a video of a man outside Sports Direct, pointing at Glamuzina.

He wants the guards to “investigate if I’ve done something wrong”, he said, to clear his name.

“Some days, I’m on the brink of killing myself,” said Glamuzina.