Guards Are Blamed for Transient’s Death in Fight

The death of a transient man during a January altercation with security guards at one of Los Angeles’ biggest agencies for the homeless was ruled a homicide this week, triggering anger among social activists and soul-searching among other organizations serving the homeless.

The death of 39-year-old Lionel Ricardo Berry also has exposed long-standing concerns about the use and training of security guards at skid row agencies that deal with a frequently volatile clientele.

The Los Angeles County coroner’s office said this week that Berry’s death on Jan. 17 was homicide as a result of asphyxiation and that his injury occurred “during restraint maneuvers” used by three security guards outside the Weingart Center at 6th and San Pedro streets downtown. Capt. David Campbell, coroner’s spokesman, said the finding is based on an autopsy and physical tests.

Los Angeles police said the case has not been referred to the district attorney for possible filing of charges, but police are investigating Berry’s death.

Some witnesses said Berry was exhibiting bizarre behavior and became combative after being asked to leave a cafe run by the Weingart, whose many housing, meal and job services are an anchor for the area’s homeless. Others said that Berry left the cafe on his own accord and that the guard’s actions were largely unprovoked.

One witness stated that the guards tackled Berry, and then, as he lay face down on the ground, one knelt on his neck. Paramedics took Berry to County-USC Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead shortly afterward.

The Los Angeles Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness and other activist groups over the past two months have held three packed community forums about the Weingart incident. At those meetings, homeless and low-income residents related cases of what they alleged was other abusive behavior by guards hired by social agencies and business improvement districts downtown.

The coalition for the homeless said it is planning to initiate a series of sensitivity training workshops for security to be named after Berry.

Meanwhile, little is known of the victim. Berry apparently was not a longtime resident of downtown. The coroner’s office listed his last known address as the Downtown Mental Health Center in San Diego. Officials there would not confirm if he was a patient, citing confidentiality rules.

He had East Coast connections--his body was shipped to Brooklyn, N.Y. for burial--and is said to be survived by a teenage daughter and a brother.

The guards in the case have not been publicly identified. Two are Weingart employees, who were suspended from duty about a week ago in response to preliminary reports about the cause of death, said Weingart President and Chief Executive Officer John F. King. He said the agency has been cooperating with police and the coroner’s office.

The third guard, subcontracted from the Pinkerton Security Agency, has been reassigned elsewhere, Pinkerton officials said.

The guards were questioned by police after the midday incident but were not booked or charged with any wrongdoing. They were back on duty the next day, to the outrage of many Weingart clients and other street people who camp near the center or use its services.

Over the years, the agency has won accolades for its emergency and transitional housing, health services and job training and for its cafe, which serves free meals to clients and low-cost meals to other community residents.

But it also has a reputation for employing a large, aggressive security detail. Other agencies that deal with the homeless--leery of publicly criticizing one of their own--acknowledge that they have heard frequent complaints about Weingart security personnel manhandling or verbally berating street people.

“They have a reputation of being goons,” said one agency head who requested anonymity.

Such talk has not gone unnoticed by Weingart, King said.

“These things have reached our ears and reached the ears of the people who are responsible for security and I have preached the gospel that everyone is to be treated with respect,” King said.

He said, however, that many of the complaints come from disgruntled former clients who were asked to leave the center and said the security guards are the frequent targets of verbally abusive street people.

Centers for the homeless, soup kitchens, missions, shelters and business improvement districts are grappling with the question of how to ensure their safety in neighborhoods overrun with social ills such as drug dealing, prostitution and mental instability. They are finding no easy answers.

“No, the private security is not well trained and are often quite frightened themselves,” said Mollie Lowery, director of LAMP, a skid row group that houses and treats the homeless mentally ill.

Lowery said her agency made a conscious decision not to employ private security and she believes that law enforcement in general tends to exacerbate problems with a difficult population. “Our jobs should be to help people find and maintain homes and I’ve never lived in a home with a security guard,” she said.

Charles “Bud” Hayes, executive director of the SRO Housing Corp., which operates low-cost housing downtown, said the Weingart incident has caused much anguish. Hayes said he initiated a new training course for his own in-house security team after observing “blatant violations of constitutional rights” meted out to homeless people by area businesses’ private security guards one day.

“Obviously, if somebody is dealing crack on the street in front of one of our hotels, we have the right to call police and make a citizens arrest. But when we approach people, we do it in a respectful manner and first ask them what we can do to assist them,” Hayes said.

National agencies for the homeless are fielding an increasing number of inquiries from people complaining of ill treatment by staff at social agencies and from organizations wanting direction about the legal rights of clients.

“Our sense is that these types of issues are a growing concern as homelessness continues and in a sense becomes institutionalized,” said Maria Foscarinis, executive director of the Washington D.C-based National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty. “Are security guards getting the kinds of training that they need? There haven’t really been any studies, but I think the answer is no, especially when you take into account the special needs of this population.”