Source: USATODAY
Hey guys I don’t know about you, but this is how I like to run a detail. I mean this guys are brilliant.
Angelina Jolie’s bodyguards allegedly roughed up parents and students Thursday at a school where she was filming scenes for her new movie, A Mighty Heart, witnesses said.
The fracas began when the gates of the Anjuman-e-Islam school, which had been locked during filming, were opened to let the parents fetch their children. “This Jolie’s bodyguard called one parent, ‘You bloody Indian,’” said Mohammed Yusuf Patni, general secretary of the school’s Parent Teacher Association. “Children were pushed around.” Patni, who has two children studying at the Muslim school, said “mothers were also shoved aside by the guards.” Dallington TV, a British production company that organized the shoot, blamed the scuffle on photographers and television cameramen that it said rushed the school to get pictures of Jolie. “We had the full permission and cooperation of the school to film on the premises,” Dallington said in a statement. “When the gates were opened to allow the parents in to collect their children, the paparazzi rushed the school causing confusion.” Representatives for Jolie refused to comment. The scuffle wasn’t the first that security guards have had since Jolie arrived in India last month with Brad Pitt and their three children. In one incident, an Associated Press freelance photographer alleged that security guards protecting Jolie’s movie set in Pune had hit him and threatened him with a gun. Earlier, as Pitt and Jolie were leaving a hotel, one of their security guards manhandled a British photographer trying to take their photo, grabbing the man by his neck and verbally abusing him.
Hucky, there are very few guys (genuinely) that have had your insight and experience. You guys were always the best because you worked together as a team – more importantly, there was clear communication and a chain of command. We now live in a very different culture – a cult of personality. These personalities are brands and the media is coverage – access to more commerce. Most of the security guys that I’ve met throughout the years never held a candle to you, Gilbert, etc. and I toured steadily up until 2001. FYI – I spent quite a bit of time with Steven F. before he died – in fact, I was the one who was with him the day he was diagnosed with Cancer (but that’s an entirely different story). One of the things that he always commented on was how well the ship sailed. You and I may have had our differences a long time ago – but you were soft spoken, non-reactive, aware, couteous, and a professional. I remember you telling me the story of Eddie’s bodyguard’s in a kitchen in L.A. Nice to know that you’re doing so well.
Well, apparently the “bodyguards” have been arrested now:
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Indian police detained three of Angelina Jolie’s bodyguards on Friday after parents complained the men had manhandled and abused them and their children during a shoot of the Hollywood star’s latest film.
Police said the British bodyguards had been taken into custody after receiving complaints about an incident at a Mumbai Islamic school where Jolie was filming “A Mighty Heart”.
Angry parents had said the guards had threatened them and called them “bloody Indians” when they tried to get into the school to collect their children on Thursday. The film crew admitted that there had been some confusion at the school as the guards tried to keep the paparazzi out.
“We have arrested three people. They are in jail now and will be produced in court,” Brajesh Singh, Mumbai’s deputy commissioner of police, told Reuters. He did not give a date for the court hearing.
Jolie has been in India for almost a month, shooting on teeming streets and crowded trains for the film which is based on the kidnap and murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002 in Pakistan by hardline Islamist militants.
The sultry actress is portraying Pearl’s wife Mariane.
Jolie, accompanied by her children and partner Brad Pitt, who is also the film’s producer, and their children has sparked a media frenzy and the film’s sets often attract huge crowds, prompting her bodyguards to step in.
agree with Don, some advance work would have been in order. Well before doors where unlocked press, fans and parents should have been properly id’d and sorted. One parent with proper id matching a list recieves the child matching on the list. Once all children were matched with parent and exited. fans and press could be dealt with accordingly. PR should always be considered esp. when on foreign soil and your detail is high profile. eyes are always watching and they love mistakes, that is what sells in their industry.
Agreed. PR nightmare. Excited fans or identified threat or risk to your client. That is the question. Good advance work may of helped identify the civilian congestion. As protective agents, we need to remember when traveling to a foreign country, decorum will go a long way in earning respect as well as dispelling the pre-concieved ideas of american rudeness.
Oh boy. I’ve got to believe at this point that these guys are just getting the short end of the stick. They can’t really be that obnoxious, can they? It’s a PR nightmare. We all remember the previous “incidents“
Elijah Shaw
An insiders look at the bodyguard industry
http://industry-icon.com/blog/
I think when you are put in that situation those photographers ask for it.