End of the Line : Police Wage War on Hustlers Working at Greyhound Depot

The street hustlers--many of them homeless--were gathered on the sidewalk to meet the arriving taxis. As each car trunk flew open, these hustlers moved in for the suitcases--not to steal them, but to haul them up the escalator and into the Greyhound Bus Terminal.

Usually, the effort was worth a buck, sometimes more, in tips. That was enough of an incentive to draw a crowd--guys such as Russell Curtis, Louis DeFrance and Lamon Hall, guys in tattered jackets and cheap sneakers, guys eager for a chance to make $30 to $60 for a full night’s work.

The action was also drawing the attention of two Los Angeles police officers assigned to foot patrol near the downtown depot. Time after time, the officers stepped in on behalf of bus travelers who did not desire free-lance porter service.

“No, no! Let the cabbie handle that!” Officer Deborah Reed hollered as one hustler made his move too early--grabbing for a suitcase before it was removed from the taxi. A moment later, Reed again was barking objections--”No! Uh-uh!”--as a hustler tried to lift a wardrobe bag from a man’s shoulder.

The little turf war over luggage is but one subplot in the gritty street drama on view all night, every night at the 24-hour Greyhound terminal at 6th and Los Angeles streets. It is a dark sampling of Americana, more Norman Bates than Norman Rockwell: seedy, surreal and a sharp reminder of Los Angeles’ ever-worsening problems of homelessness, drug abuse and mental illness.

For 24 years, the Greyhound depot has been the hub of the mostly downtrodden district south of the Civic Center. In a given 24-hour period, 7,000 passengers arrive and depart from the blocklong terminal, making connections to cities from Long Beach to Hollywood, San Jose to Phoenix--and all points beyond.

Over time, it has become necessary for passengers and police to contend with growing numbers of street people, many of them depressed, schizophrenic or paroled from jail. Although the overall crime rate in the sector has dropped during the past five years, LAPD Capt. Norm Rouillier said officers have been forced to pay attention to the bus terminal, where unsuspecting travelers often find themselves directed into dark side streets to be robbed or assaulted.

In recent months, patrol officers have been directed to spend more time outside the depot to curtail the aggressive behavior of porters and window washers, who converge on a car uninvited, then expect tips.

“They can be very intimidating, and a lot of people will (decide they have to) pay them,” Rouillier said. “We try to discourage tourists from wandering off in the 10-square-block area (around the terminal). . . . It’s a constant battle.”

On this night, the crowd at the depot entrance on 6th Street numbered about two dozen, a total that seemed constant despite the steady ebb and flow of passengers. A few in the crowd were cabdrivers, their cars lined up and waiting at the curb. Some were new arrivals in town, huddled in small groups under the building’s overhang, waiting for friends and relatives to pick them up.

One such visitor was Barbara Orbison, 33, a sales clerk who had just rolled in on the 9 p.m. bus from San Francisco. Her problem was that she rode in on what was supposed to have been the 6 p.m. bus--before it overheated on some forsaken stretch of asphalt in Central California.

Now, as she sat on her suitcase, waiting for a friend who would take her to Pasadena, Orbison could only watch the hustlers at work.

“Bus stations,” she said grimly, “are always in the worst part of town.”

For the hustlers, the luggage scramble represents a chance to scrape up dollars for food, a night’s lodging . . . or alcohol and drugs.

“We’d rather do this than go out and steal,” said Russell Curtis, 32, who became homeless last year. Curtis wore a blue baseball cap and kept his eyes fixed on the street, watching for taxis. “We’re hungry, man. (We’re) here 24 hours a day.”

A hustler who called himself “Papa” Smurd, 55, said he often uses the money to secure a $27 room at one of the downtown hotels: “This is a job for a lot of guys, how they make their living. Washing windows, toting bags, being arrested by the police.”

Lamon Hall, 38, who came to Los Angeles two years ago from Dallas, was one of the window washers. He was equipped with a rag and spray bottle, and a box of cigarettes was stuffed in the pocket of a dirty jacket.

“I need three more dollars,” he said, “and I’m gone.”

Hall spoke bitterly about the police crackdown.

“If you stay here and don’t get harassed, you’ll make $50, $60,” Hall said. “I come out here to work, to get food. The police harass us, run us off.”

Rouillier said police officers will not intervene if the hustlers are polite--after all, the depot has a shortage of baggage help--but “that’s not how they operate.”

He went on: “A lot of people were out begging, and now they’ve found a new way (to get money) by being more forceful. We get a lot of complaints about it.”

Cabdriver Bill Jiminez, who has been working the depot for 17 years, talked about the tensions in the neighborhood. He has seen fights between hustlers over $2 or $3 in tips. He has seen bus travelers mugged and robbed.

Six years ago, the cabbie said, he saw somebody shot on the sidewalk.

“The guy was lying on the sidewalk, bleeding, and another guy comes by and starts going through his pockets!” Jiminez said. “We started laughing and going, ‘That son of a . . . !’ ”

He said cabdrivers rarely intervene in such skirmishes for fear that the aggressors “might retaliate and bust out the windows of our cars.” As for the neighborhood: “It’s getting worse. Most people down here, they’re hooked on drugs. They burglarize these downtown shops and you see all that stuff (for sale) out here. They’ll sell everything . . . TVs, toilet seats, you name it. Sell you a car, sometimes.”

The added police presence has curtailed some of the huckstering, but it goes on, especially when the foot patrols move on to other streets. Near midnight, one hustler stood in the shadows west of the depot entrance holding up an engraved pendant.

“Sterling silver! Five dollars!” he called, accosting a would-be buyer.

Asked about the engraving, he appeared to look at the figure for the first time. “It’s Mary.” Then, correcting himself: “It’s that king. That Hebrews thing, whatever you call it. From the Bible. It’s from the Bible.

“I’ll sell it to you for $3.”

Even after midnight, the line upstairs at the Greyhound ticket counter was lengthy--as many as 100 people snaking through the long, tiled lobby before wee-hour departures for Anaheim, San Francisco and Ventura.

Nearby, depot security guard Walt Hauser, an off-duty LAPD officer, kept watch to keep “the riffraff” downstairs. Greyhound tolerates the free-lance porters until they reach the top of the escalator; at that point, Hauser turns them back.

Hauser was talking about the homeless men that sleep downstairs at the foot of the escalator--”They use that as a mission”--when he broke away to intercept homeless porter Robert Jackson, who was trying to follow a passenger into the ticket line.

The 42-year-old Jackson stood with Hauser at the top of the escalator, clearly anguished. “I didn’t get paid,” he complained.

“It stops right here,” Hauser said firmly. “You’re hanging out down there like you’re a Greyhound employee!”

“I was just carrying the woman’s bags. I didn’t get paid!”

“You don’t always get paid. You violate the rule, you’ve got to suck it up.”

Jackson would not go away. He kept gesturing to the far end of the lobby. The woman was waiting to pay him. See, she was down there. Way down there.

Finally, Hauser relented. Jackson hurried through the lobby and came back, a dollar richer.