March Turns Into Rout : Group Protesting Prostitution Chases Woman Through Streets

What began Tuesday night as a march against prostitution by about 150 North Long Beach residents, Mayor Ernie Kell and his wife, Jackie, turned into a rout of a prostitute sighted on the street a couple of blocks away.

The mood of the rally changed when about 20 members of the group split off to chase an admitted prostitute in purple shorts through back yards and over fences, leaving the mayor behind.

At first, the march went according to plan. Parents and grandparents waved signs and pulled babies in wagons and buggies. Cars honked and people came out on front lawns to stare as the group tromped up and down Artesia Boulevard, between Myrtle and Cherry streets, where the prostitutes ply their trade, police said.

“This is great,” the mayor said, holding a sign. “This will let the ladies of the night know they’re not wanted around here.”

Tactics changed, however, near the Taco Bell on Artesia Boulevard, where some women uncovered a bra and panty hose tossed under a fence. A young girl in shorts approached them.

“Is that one of the ladies?” the mayor asked. “Is that one?”

As a matter of fact, she was the daughter of one of the marchers. She had come to say a prostitute had been sighted at 65th Street and Orange Avenue.

Part of the group ran down the block, leaving Kell and most of the other marchers behind. “We’re hunting whores!” whooped Jennifer Giroux, 14, daughter of one of the march organizers.

The crowd’s anger peaked when the prostitute was tracked to a house on Lemon Avenue. About twenty of the protesters surrounded the home, shouting and waving signs. Jeff Tovar, who had been running down the street pushing his 8-month-old nephew in a stroller, yelled: “Ain’t nowhere you’re going to get away!”

The prostitute walked out of the house and began swearing at a woman who was yelling at her. Tovar’s nephew started to cry. So did a young girl scared by the shouting. The prostitute kept walking quickly ahead. About eight marchers followed, including a boy on a skateboard.

“Get out of my face,” she muttered.

“We’ll follow you until you die!” screeched a 12-year-old boy.

For the next 30 minutes, the woman walked into back yards, scaled fences and banged on doors trying to escape. The protesters who had been chasing the prostitute returned to the main body of marchers about 7:30 p.m., giving each other high-fives.

“We chased the whore to Houghton Park!” Jennifer yelled.

“Victory!” her mother, Helene Giroux, proclaimed.

The mayor and his wife had already left, uncomfortable with the twist the march had taken.

Kell first told the crowd that he was proud of them but also said, “Leave the chasing to the police.”

“We have to be careful that events like this don’t turn violent,” said Deputy Police Chief Bill Thomas, who also said extra officers had been assigned to the area because of the protest, but they did not realize that a splinter group had gone after the prostitute.

Speaking for some members of the group, Helene Giroux said: “We’re going to run the prostitutes out of North Long Beach.”

Cheri Loder, one of the organizers of the march, said: “I feel sorry for them (prostitutes), but we don’t want them in our neighborhood.”

Tuesday’s rally was the third such march in two weeks, and residents plan another this weekend.

“We’ve just had enough,” said Martha Thuente, another organizer.

The number of prostitutes working the area has grown this year to about eight. They have recently become much more aggressive, according to Sgt. Soren Poulsen, head of the police vice unit.

Prostitutes have become so brazen that some operate out of cars parked in front of homes during the day, tossing condoms and underwear onto lawns, residents said.

Most of them are drug addicts who offer “services” for $20 to $50 to buy about a day’s supply of rock cocaine, police said. Some prostitutes moved in after they were pushed off the Pacific Coast Highway by residents who didn’t want them there, either.

They wait for “dates” outside the Grand Prix Theater, an X-rated cinema on Artesia Boulevard. They use a pay phone in front of a doughnut shop, across the street from a school bus stop. Children on their way to Grant Elementary School, David Jordan Senior High School and Hamilton Junior High School walk past the prostitutes on the way to class.

Brandie Samples, 11, said: “There was one at the corner the other day while we were waiting for our school bus. Three guys picked her up.”

“It gets me sick,” said Lisa Maes, 12.

During Tuesday’s protest, their parents gave the mayor an earful.

“One day, she (a prostitute) put her face right in the car and asked my 17-year-old if he wanted to--you know,” Kathy Augustine told Kell. “And my daughter was propositioned the other day.”

Kell promised marchers that the situation will “turn around” when sheriff’s deputies begin patroling the area next month.

Last year, 975 prostitutes and their customers were arrested, police said. So far this year, there have been 862 arrests.

Police said they can do no more because the city’s vice unit in charge of controlling prostitution has been cut this year from 15 to 10.

City Prosecutor John Vander Lans said that even when prostitutes are arrested, many end up back on the streets within days, because the county jail is overcrowded.

“One goes in, and the other goes out,” Vander Lans said.

In the end, Kathryn, the admitted prostitute the crowd was chasing Tuesday night, was undaunted.

“I’m not worried about them,” she said. “Maybe this will make prostitution go away for a little while, but it will start right back up. People will always want it. And I’m not moving out of here.”