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Boulder Ankle Monitor Company Has Extra Security Pulled

BOULDER, Colo. (CBS4) - Boulder Police say they will resume off-duty security for a company that's come under fire for doing business with the Department of Homeland Security. BI Incorporated is a subsidiary of GEO Corporation, which operates private detention facilities for ICE.

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Some council members and the city manager told police they could no longer provide off-duty security for the company after immigration activists complained, then the city reversed course a few weeks later due to "safety concerns."

The company was founded in Boulder more than 40 years ago and employs some 300 people - from engineers to factory workers. It manufactures, among other things, ankle monitors for law enforcement agencies.

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DHS, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is one of its 1,400 customers. After immigration activists protested at the company in June, BI Incorporated Vice President Jock Waldo says Boulder police recommended that he hire off-duty officers to provide security.

He did so, only to have the city manager pull the security.

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"We have not been notified by the city as to why that decision was made." Waldo says he only learned the reason behind the decision from the local newspaper. "The things that are outside of our control, for example border policy or who should wear a device or who shouldn't wear a device, we don't make those decisions. We simply manufacture the devices."

Devices that, ironically, are meant to keep people out of prison.

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"All I would ask is that the individuals in the city who make a decision like that would take the time to fully understand what we do, and equally important, what we don't do."

Waldo says he met with immigration activists to help them understand what the company does and doesn't do. He has a meeting with the city manager, at his request, Friday.

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