Street Vendors Allege Extortion

The Los Angeles Police Department is investigating allegations that security guards hired to patrol downtown’s Fashion district extorted money from the illegal street vendors they were supposed to be removing from the streets.

Detectives said several guards were involved in a “shakedown” operation in which they collected $15 to $50 daily from vendors, who sell everything from counterfeit purses to pirated DVDs. In exchange, the vendors were allowed to operate.

Police served search warrants two weeks ago at the office of the Fashion district’s Business Improvement District, a merchants’ group that had contracted the guards. As the investigation continues, district officials have vowed to make changes, such as hiring retired police officers as guards.

The allegation comes as downtown merchants and residents debate the increasingly common use of private workers to clean and patrol the streets.

Fashion district merchants said the security service had dramatically improved the area.

Young Park, who sells formal dresses on Santee Street, said customers used to be frightened by aggressive street vendors. The security guards “make the street better, more clean,” he said.

But critics wonder at what price.

“BID security guards often think they own the streets,” said Sean Basinski, director of an advocacy program that gives free legal advice to street vendors. “They dress like police and act like police, but they’re basically private citizens like you and me.”

Property and business owners created the merchant organization in 1995 after city budget cuts reduced police and maintenance services. The security officers, who dress in yellow polo shirts and black pants, patrol mostly on bikes, doing everything from picking up garbage to nabbing shoplifters.

Detectives began investigating the security force after more than a dozen street vendors filed complaints with the LAPD in February. The vendors came forward although many lack permits and sell counterfeit or pirated goods.

The guards seemed to collect the money on a whim, said Det. John Rodriguez of the LAPD’s Commercial Crimes Division.

“In many cases, the vendor had to pay the same guard every day. The only day he’d get a break was on the guard’s day off,” he said.

Detectives believe that the guards threatened vendors who refused to pay by confiscating their material. According to the merchant group’s guidelines, security officers can confiscate only abandoned illegal merchandise, either found by chance or left behind by a fleeing vendor.

No arrests have been made, but police said they hope to wrap up the investigation soon.

“We don’t know how many guards were participating in this,” Rodriguez said. “We have a handle on several, but according to complaints several more were involved, so we’re looking at all of them.”

One street vendor who said he was a victim of the guards was Leslie Garcia, who sells $5 pirated DVDs out of a cardboard box at the corner of 9th and Santee streets.

“Last time he came up to me, he asked me to give him $15 a day so he [would] not bother me,” Garcia said Monday. “It was better to give him $15 than to lose my merchandise.”

Garcia, 20, said she ended up paying $150 that week. She said she reported the incidents to district officials but they refused to do anything.

“If they’re trying to clean [the streets], I think it’s going to be impossible,” Garcia said. “People need to work. Sometimes they don’t have money to rent space.”

Some merchants, however, said the security force has transformed Santee Street, which once was crowded with illegal vendors and filled with trash.

Harry Jethani, who owns an Indonesian apparel store, Bali Collection, said that during the his seven years on Santee Street, he had witnessed countless fights among illegal vendors vying for space.

Since the security officers began patrolling, “there’s no more fighting,” he said. “It’s a clean curb.”

On Monday, Business Improvement District officials said they were making changes due to the police investigation.

“We want to be contributing to the solution, not the problem,” said Kent Smith, executive director of the merchant group.

Smith first learned of the investigation on May 4, when LAPD officers with a search warrant entered the Business Improvement District’s office and searched the lockers of three guards.

Since then, the organization has launched an internal investigation, banned security officers from confiscating merchandise and removed the three guards whose lockers had been searched.

This is not the first time that Fashion district security has come under scrutiny.

In 1999, homeless residents sued the Fashion district’s business group and three other defendants in Los Angeles, saying that their security officers had falsely imprisoned them and beaten them. The plaintiffs said it was part of an orchestrated effort by the district to chase the homeless out of downtown.

Ultimately, the organization settled the lawsuit, agreeing not to interrogate, search or order homeless residents to move along and giving two of the plaintiffs $600 in food and clothing vouchers.

More recently, Fashion district guards have helped LAPD conduct sweeps for illegal vendors. The Business Improvement District security officers are licensed by the state but can make only citizen arrests.