[bav]

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Did it take security 3-5 minutes just to get there, or to finally haul them away? I wouldn't consider a 3-5 minute span between potential life-threatening violence, and security's arrival to be acceptable, but I've never seen this situation arise, so maybe that's standard.

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I've seen tense situations where security arrives quickly, but not in large numbers. Two guys start to get into it, floor tells someone to call security while he runs and gets between the players. 20 seconds later I see one security dude hanging back 15 yards. 20 seconds later a 2nd. 30 seconds later two more, and at that point they step closer while still allowing the floor person to try to deal with it. That makes perfect sense...the presence of uniformed security in a very tense situation can make things worse if there aren't enough of them to apply overwhelming force if the sight of them makes someone snap.

So if there were security folks watching closely from a distance for 3 minutes while the floor worked on calming folks down, that's ok long as it appeared the floor was succeeding. If it really took 5 minutes for anybody to show up, that's pretty poor.