Boulevard beefs up holiday security

Karen Zekan

Tuesday, Nov. 26, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

Nearly a million shoppers are expected to pour into the Boulevard Mall this holiday season -- a boon to merchants but a concern for security and police in the wake of a gang shooting that hospitalized two teenagers.

Friday's incident marked the third gunfight at the mall in less than a year.

Yet those who have caused the violence, officials say, are the exception to the norm and the targets of a beefed-up security system that may well be the best in the mall's history.

* More than 100 cameras monitor the complex's 1.2 million square feet of parking and shopping areas, allowing security to document an offender's every move.

* Uniformed security officers patrol the grounds on foot and bike.

* Metro Police will team up with security over the holidays. Citizens academy members and volunteers will assist with customers and parking.

* Escorts walk shoppers to their cars as well as shuttle those with too many unwieldy packages in golf carts.

And there's more, although Burk Smith, a 29-year FBI veteran who now directs security for the mall, was hesitant for obvious reasons to elaborate on specific security measures.

"We have a highly integrated system," Smith said. "We hope the end total is greater than the sum of its parts."

Mall security was in a holiday planning meeting with Metro at 5:05 p.m. Friday when a teenage gunman fired a near-lethal round that traveled through an alleged rival's mouth and then into his 16-year-old friend's arm.

Police and security responded within seconds to a sports apparel shop where the incident occurred, but the gunman and his accomplice had fled.

Authorities are still looking for the offenders, described as Hispanic boys about 16 or 17, one with a shaved or bald head and the other with long dark hair. Both are believed to have gang ties and live near the mall.

A verbal fight in the mall's food court preceded the shooting, said Metro gang Sgt. Chuck Cassell.

"These kids love the food court," Cassell said.

A fight between two Asian youth gangs started there several weeks ago, Cassell said, and ended outside in the parking lot when one teen with a shotgun fired into a rival's car and left two people with minor injuries.

Jose Angel Aguilar, 19, and Jesse Thomas LeBlanc, 23, are behind bars on felony counts of robbery, burglary, assault with a deadly weapon and possessing a stolen vehicle after shooting at a Boulevard Mall security guard in a failed shoplifting getaway Dec. 21.

Aguilar and LeBlanc had gang ties, police said.

"From Paradise Road to Eastern Avenue and Sahara to Tropicana Avenue, you have a plethora of gangs who love to go to the (Boulevard) mall to hang out," Cassell said. "Of course, when they get there, their rivals show up and there's a fight."

The Boulevard does not have a gang policy per se, relying instead upon an "inappropriate behavior" policy that can blacklist a violator for up to six months from visiting the property, Smith said.

Frank Wheat, Meadows Mall general manager, said on average 10 to 40 people per year are thrown out of their mall for bad behavior. Their photos are pinned up on security walls; misdemeanors charges are their punishment should they return.

Four years ago, 19-year-old Thomas Carcelli of Las Vegas was shot to death in a non-gang incident in a Meadows Mall parking lot by 20-year-old Matthew Charniga after the two strangers got into an argument.

Charniga pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and received an eight-year suspended prison term and probation.

"None of us are immune to this type of incident," Wheat said. "It can happen anywhere, as easily as it can happen in your own front yard. With the residential development in the west and northwest and all over the valley, though, we're becoming more of an inner-city shopping center ... as opposed to a suburban shopping center."

Authorities stress that gang activity at malls is not out of control, but they encourage shoppers to be aware.

"It's always been gang on gang in the past, and no innocent shoppers have been involved," Cassell said.

"Whenever you see people congregating in the mall and it doesn't look right -- like they're doing nothing more than hanging out -- stay away from them," Cassell said. "Shop with a friend or two. Alert security."