City Investigating Crime Vigilante’s Base

Based in a doughnut shop in a crime-plagued neighborhood, Mary Lou Holte has been acclaimed by Barbara Walters, Larry King and the Wall Street Journal as a force for good, a citizen crime-buster who stands up to street thieves and prostitutes.

But Holte now finds that the Los Angeles Police Department has called the shop a magnet for crime, branded it a public nuisance and asked that its operations be sharply restricted.

At the request of police and neighbors, a city zoning official on Monday decided to investigate.

Holte, who does not work at the shop but has made it her base of operations for street patrols for five years, said rivals are trying to “blow me away from the corner.”

“Why don’t we just take Mary Lou and shoot her down?” Holte said. “They’re trying to do this just to get me away.”

It’s nothing personal, said LAPD Capt. James McMurray. Police have pursued similar action against dozens of businesses, and McMurray said the primary concern remains the presence of suspected criminals and prostitutes.

“She talks to them,” said McMurray, who commands the Van Nuys station. “It’s like she’s gathering intelligence, but it’s certainly not like she’s driving them away.”

The shop provides “the same haven for the street people that are preying on the citizens of the neighborhood,” McMurray said. “If a prostitute sees a cop coming, she runs in and buys a cup of coffee and a doughnut. That makes it kind of hard to remove them from the road.”

Police and neighbors filed complaints about the Sepulveda Boulevard shop, Orville’s Originals, along with California Coin Laundry, located in the same mini-mall. McMurray said he wanted zoning officials to implement the same restrictions that were imposed against a convenience market in the shopping center.

Two years ago, the city forced the convenience store to cut back its 24-hour schedule to 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. on weekdays and Saturdays, closing at midnight on Sundays. The store also was forced to hire a security guard for the night hours.

The request has also puzzled Ulysses Contedor, the owner of the doughnut shop for the past five years.

“Prostitutes come into my store for doughnuts, coffee, but never do their job here,” he said. “For me, this place is as safe as any place in Los Angeles.”

Contedor also blamed Holte.

“She’s not good for me,” Contedor said of Holte. “Before she came here, I had no problems. The city did not say, ‘I want to cut the hours at your store.’ ”

Holte, 45, says she began her crusade against street crime after she was nearly raped while walking home from Valley College. When she is not walking Sepulveda with her flashlight and note pad in search of possible criminal activity, Holte keeps an eye out for trouble from the doughnut shop.

She reports the license plates of suspected criminals, confronts those she suspects of illegal activity and occasionally calls police for help from the doughnut shop. She has made one citizen’s arrest there.

Recently, Holte, who is on disability, has been hailed in the national media for her crime-fighting exploits. Barbara Walters lauded her as a “fantastic . . . one-woman vigilance team” on ABC’s “20/20” and the Wall Street Journal called her the “Vigilante of Van Nuys.” She was featured on the nationally syndicated “Jerry Springer Show” in Chicago, has done numerous radio interviews and received the Doberman Award from a lock manufacturer.

“The media made Mary Lou,” Contedor said. “She comes in, but she doesn’t have any power.”

Not so, says Holte. She claims to have talked several prostitutes out of their line of work. She also said that she works extensively with local police in reporting suspicious activity.

“I have definitely helped the police clean up a lot of the crime,” Holte said. “When I go into the doughnut shop, they clear out. (The criminals) know better.”

McMurray acknowledges that Holte has occasionally been a valuable tipster.

Nevertheless, Holte said McMurray is “biased” because of her criticisms of the police in the media and that complaining neighbors are “jealous” of her recent fame. The problem, she says, is that the alcohol sales in the mini-mall still lure undesirables. At the same time, police are unresponsive to her calls, she says.

“I cannot tell you how many times we have called the police and they have not showed up,” Holte said.

But Holte’s crime-fighting calls for help may come back to haunt her. Associate Zoning Administrator Horace Tramel Monday said he will investigate the number of calls for help from the doughnut shop.

“The volume of police response is an indication of the problem,” Tramel said. “That’s one of the things we use in determining where to go.”

Holte says she does not plan to go anywhere.

“Nobody is going to intimidate me and nobody is going to control me and I’m not going to stop what I’m doing,” she said. “You don’t get the awards and you don’t get the national attention if you’ve done something wrong.”