Checking for a Ticket to Ride

Checking for small, yellow tickets, two police officers walked through the subway train as it pushed out of Hollywood. Everyone obliged. Then the officers stopped beside a bone-thin man wearing a black skullcap. He extended empty hands. No ticket.

When the train stopped, the Los Angeles Police Department officers escorted the man onto a subway platform. He didn’t have identification. The officers grew suspicious. He nervously gave his name. He admitted being in a gang--and had a tattoo on his chest to prove it--but said that he’d never been convicted of a crime.

Jackpot, thought Officer Joel Miller, part of an LAPD sweep to keep criminals from using the Metro Rail subway to do their dirty work. “He’s lying.”

Miller used psychology, telling the man that he could be arrested and that if his fingerprints showed he was lying--about his name or record--big-time trouble could be coming.

The man ‘fessed up, gave another name and his gang alias--Thug. He admitted that he is an ex-con. Miller gave Thug a lecture on telling the truth--and a $250 ticket. “Thanks, officer,” the man replied.

Later, Miller explained what he saw as the effectiveness of the encounter. “That guy goes back, tells his fellow gang members we’re out here--a point gets driven home,” said Miller, an ex-Marine with a slight Mississippi drawl. “Don’t try to use the subway for any kind of wrongdoing.”

Worried that criminals are using the subway to target Hollywood--an area spending hundreds of millions to boost tourism--the LAPD last spring launched a series of aggressive sweeps through the area’s underground.

Dubbed the Fare Evasion Task Force, the sweeps saturate Red Line subway stations with officers on the lookout for scofflaws, often using the failure to have a ticket as a pretext for running identification and criminal background checks.

“It’s simple,” said Deputy Chief Dave Kalish, who compares the sweeps with successful similar efforts in several East Coast cities. “We’re using the fare laws to crack down on criminality, much as in New York. Criminals aren’t paying their fares, that’s just common sense. This is a good way to find them.”

Although the American Civil Liberties Union thinks otherwise--questioning whether police are overstepping their bounds--in Hollywood you’d be hard-pressed to find skeptics. Most business owners and residents say only good can come of the police taking proactive measures to stop crime.

The idea of creating a task force began when police noticed an uptick in crime after the June 2000 opening of two Metropolitan Transportation Authority subway stops on Hollywood Boulevard--one near the corner of Vine Street, the other at Highland Avenue.

The stop at the Hollywood and Highland intersection is an urban planner’s dream--and a huge concern for police.

Riders spill out at the entrance of what city officials hope will be the engine driving an economic make-over: the massive Hollywood & Highland shopping center and entertainment complex. Opened in November at a cost of $615 million, the sprawl of high-end shops and restaurants wraps around the 3,600-seat Ford Theater, the new home of the Academy Awards. “That’s the city’s new Crystal Palace,” Hollywood Division Capt. Michael Downing said. “We’ll do whatever we can to protect it.”

Compared with much of the city, Hollywood’s crime rate is low, and the MTA’s subway system is regarded as one of the nation’s safest.

But in the months before the opening of Hollywood & Highland, as police surveyed statistics near the mall, an upward trend made them nervous.

Throughout 2001, the number of serious crimes--mainly robberies and assaults--rose steadily. Four such crimes occurred in the area in the first quarter of the year, 10 in the second quarter, followed by 16 from July through September. Adding to their worry, police knew that overall serious crime throughout Hollywood was up slightly compared with the previous year.

The capper came when Downing’s officers began telling him that the Red Line seemed to be carrying a significant number of known criminals, ex-cons and parole violators into Hollywood, a surge that police admit is difficult to quantify but that they are certain of nonetheless.

One officer said he can usually spot an ex-con by tattoos, physical bearing or the way they look police in the eye. “With no fear. They bird-dog you. We were getting a lot of guys like that,” he said.

So last spring, the Hollywood Division and the LAPD’s transit police began running their task force, staging patrols about once a month.

On a recent night, about three dozen officers met inside the Hollywood Division station for roll call before beginning another sweep. A few were in street clothes, dressed in jeans and baseball caps, members of the undercover unit.

“We want to keep making our presence felt,” Downing said.

He outlined goals for the evening: Roam the subway, run background checks on those without tickets and identification, keep any kind of criminal element riding the Red Line on its toes.

“Tonight, we’re all over the place,” Officer Miller said as he rode an escalator into the subway at Western Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard.

While some officers, such as Miller and partner Eric Yerkey, took to the trains, others waited on the mezzanine levels and near ticket booths.

Miller and Yerkey are transit officers whose job is patrolling the subway, cruising the platforms and scouring the labyrinth-like system of tunnels.

As they rode the subway in the Hollywood area, most trains were about half full. It was just before Christmas, and many riders were on their way to shop. Considering that the MTA runs its subway system on an honor system--there are no turnstiles to check fares as in San Francisco or New York--an astonishing number of people had their tickets.

One who didn’t was Thug. Another was a man whom Miller and Yerkey stopped as he left Hollywood. After running a background check, the officers found that he was wanted for a robbery in New York. When they arrested the man, they found that he was hiding crack cocaine in his underwear.

By night’s end, the task force was proclaimed successful by Officer Michael Shea, responsible for coordinating the sweep. Fifty-two people were ticketed for minor infractions. Three riders were arrested for outstanding warrants. The man caught with crack was the only felony arrest.

The presence of officers clearly pleased most riders, scores of whom smiled at the police and offered up their tickets without prompting.

“It’s just nice to see them down here. They are friendly and know about the system if you have questions,” said Hilda Ramirez, a young mother.

Yet not everyone is equally enamored. The ACLU expressed reservations about the sweeps. ACLU lawyer Dan Tokaji said he thinks that in most instances police don’t have the right to run background checks on fare evaders because they don’t have probable cause.

“When they go beyond just checking for tickets,” Tokaji said, “they clearly run into very serious constitutional problems.”

Emboldened by a business community clamoring for safe streets, and by recent projections showing crime around the subways has dropped slightly, the LAPD has no plans to stop.

“We have a right to ask for tickets; we do it to everyone, and we don’t see any part of the process as a problem,” Downing said, adding that the background checks are the same as when police pull a driver over for a traffic violation. “The most important thing, we feel this is going to work.”

*

If you have questions, comments or story ideas regarding driving or traffic in Southern California, send an e-mail to behindthewheel@latimes.com.