by Josh Koehn on Jun 22, 2012
The SubZERO Festival in downtown San Jose earlier this month went off without a hitch, but business owners still plan to beef up security on the streets. (Photo by Jessica Shirley-Donnelly)
A woman twirls from flowing red curtains a dozen feet in the air. Down the street, a painted lady contorts her multi-colored torso at an angle so the she blends with artwork behind her.
Nearby, a couple of guys with Day of the Dead face paint riff on a guitar and keyboard. And not far off, among the ebullient SubZERO Festival crowd of 15,000-plus—filled with artists, musicians, craft brew aficionados and downtown ramblers—are six men dressed in all black, keeping a watchful eye; some with batons, others Tasers. One carries a gun.
These men are not police.
Rather, they’re part of Silver Star Protective Services, a private security firm that was hired to patrol the June 1 arts and music subculture festival held on South First Street in San Jose. But when a San Jose police sergeant approached one of the security guards that night, some controversy arose.
They were “not only wearing uniform like ours, but also wearing duty belts, batons, tasers, pepper spray or other chemical agents,” says San Jose Police Department spokesman Jose Garcia. “The sergeant expressed concern that they were too similar looking to SJPD and asked them to leave and remove their tasers, firearms and baton, but they could keep pepper spray and mace.”
Henry David Mestaz, president and CEO of Silver Star, says the officer in charge of policing the outskirts of the event was “pretty aggressive” in getting his point across, but there was no altercation.
“Our gameplan was we anticipated thousands of people we’re going to come through,” Mestaz says, noting a reputation downtown events have earned over the years due to younger, disruptive crowds that attended the now defunct Music in the Park summer concert series—to the chagrin of local business owners. “Some of the clientele that was going to Music in the Park were meeting over here afterwards (on South First Street). They were hanging out, drinking, making there way towards the event, and then coming back and fighting. But SubZERO was completely the opposite.”
Under San Jose’s municipal code, police have the authority to regulate which security guards can arm themselves. Silver Star—a new company that may have been “overly excited and enthusiastic,” according to SubZERO organizers Cherri Lakey and Brian Eder, who own Anno Domini art gallery on South First Street—could have gone too far in looking the part of cops in uniform.
The clash between police and the private security company didn’t result in any citations, but it has produced an internal review by SJPD that is expected to reach the city attorney and chief of police’s offices to clarify acceptable uniform and weaponry for outside protective services, Officer Garcia says.
But the events at SubZERO, or actually the lack thereof, seems to speak to the misconception many people have of downtown San Jose, as well as those charged with patrolling it.
“We’re all trying really hard to shift culture, and especially night culture,” Eder says. “It’s just a matter for us that we want to show police we can have events that go really smoothly. And over a matter of time we can all figure this out.”
Part of a new plan by the business community to rebrand downtown is to staff the city’s core with two patrolling officers. However, how these security guards will be paid has kicked off a new fight between police and city officials.
Comments (5)
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arrogance ... Sat, Jun 23, 2012 - 3:16 pm
Licardo is feed them a line of bull and this owners are greedy. Licardo tells them go along and play nice when the A’s come we are all going to be rich. He has stripped police department to levels that they cannot police the city. Officers now work 50 to 60 hours a week. Cannot get a day off and are building huge banks of overtime that at some point will need to be paid. Licardo does not want to hire so he is telling these greedy owners to dig into their pockets and fund a few more cops. they are going along with it because they hope to get rich. I wonder also if Licardo has put some city funds into the downtown association to pay for these cops. this way they do not have to hire and can try and make an officer work for a lower wage doing the very thing the city should be paying cops to do.
What he is not telling them and they are blinded by their greed and lust to get rich when the A’s come is to see what Licardo cannot control. Licardo cannot control the criminals and sooner or latter someone will get killed or there will be one to many robberies. It will show up in the medial and word will get out that Downtown is dangerous. People will stop going downtown. It could happen in a weekend and the traffic could be reduced by 30 to 50% overnight. would you go downtown if you were worried about being robbed or killed.
they are trying to cheat and taking a huge risk history will tell you that downtown can blow up anytime. they are one shooting, rape, robbery or beating away from causing the public to say stay away from downtown its not safe. there are no cops and there are crooks everywhere. When that happens it will be too late and Licardo will be saying it was the pensions that did it but blaming the pensions is not going to bring people into your business is it.
Noe Longoria Sat, Jun 23, 2012 - 4:41 pm
I was the Downtown San Jose police deistrict supervisor on the midnight shift during the mid 1990’s. I can tell you that Downtown was very explosive then. Bars, drunks, and fights were the norm. Then throw in gangs, prostitutes and rowdy out-of-towners and you start getting an idea of the circus atmosphere. When I retired in 2004, the San Jose Police Department had approximately 1400 officers. The sytematic dismanteling of the San Jose Police Department by the current City administration has left the Department with about 1000 officers in 2012. This is precisely why Downtown business owners are crying for more police protection and are willing to pay for it. Several of my officers were injured while breaking up bar fights. They were covered because they were on city time. But if they get hurt while working off-duty, who will cover them? The secondary employer? Personally I wouldn’t work unless it was on City time.
Wil Smoke Sun, Jun 24, 2012 - 6:56 am
Yes let’s see if any officers will work for Liccardo after he and Reed have called them lazy, cancer, etc. after the officers patrol this area for overtime at min wage, then they can be deployed to every corner of the city ... Another stupid idea, by Liccardo!
Joe Stewart Sun, Jun 24, 2012 - 11:14 am
There are huge differences, and both Kneis and Liccardo know it, between providing security on private property and proactively patrolling public streets. At a shopping center, officers provide security and deal with problems that occur on that property. At a school, officers again provide security at the school and deal with students and their problems. Liccardo wants officers to look for problems on city streets and aggressively enforce laws. Officers will contact drunks and mentally ill homeless people. These are the people most likely to fight with officers. When working secondary employment, officers have none of the protections of on-duty officers if they get hurt. The issue is less about the pay rate than it is about using off-duty officers with no disability or workers comp protection as opposed to respecting the people you are asking to protect your property enough to insure them if they get hurt doing so.
sevenoneedwardthree Fri, Jul 20, 2012 - 4:26 pm
I agree that we do not need these pretend COPS patrolling the streets of San Jose. I believe these are the same guys that used to patrol some parking area off 2nd and San Carlos. THey used to try to dress like us then. The City needs highly qualified individuals doing this job, not a bunch of high school dropouts. Pay us to do the job that we are trained to do.