Working the Doors

The families of two bouncers who were killed in a shooting at a Franklinton strip club agreed yesterday to a plea deal, ending the two-week murder trial of Tarell D. Patton.

Patton, 20, was on trial in Franklin County Common Pleas Court on two counts of murder and one count of felonious assault after a 2006 shootout with club security at the Downtown Dolls nightclub.

Jurors had watched a video recording yesterday of Patton apparently caught in the act of the Oct. 14, 2006, shooting before defense attorneys and prosecutors worked out the plea deal.

Columbus police said Patton had left the bar, at 1336 W. Broad St., after a scuffle inside with security but started shooting at the bouncers when they refused to let him back into the club.

Two guards for Downtown Dolls, David Carter, 25, and Andrew Conley, 28, died in the gunfire, and bar patron Brian Eskridge, 38, was wounded.

Prosecutors acknowledged that Conley was struck by bullets from two different handguns -- a 9 mm and a .357-caliber. They said that Patton had a 9 mm, and a third guard inside the club had fired the other gun.

Carter died of wounds made by the 9 mm pistol, which was never recovered.

Patton pleaded guilty to both murders after family members of the bouncers agreed to a combined sentence for both murders of 18 years to life, the maximum sentence for one murder committed with a gun.

Judge Michael J. Holbrook agreed to the sentence and dismissed the jury. Had he been convicted by verdict, Patton faced at least 36 years behind bars, his defense attorneys said. He also faced sentencing for trafficking in cocaine, possession of cocaine, failure to appear in court and attempted carrying of a concealed weapon. With the plea, Patton was allowed to serve those four sentences concurrently with the murder sentence.

"I hope you understand the mercy shown by these families," Holbrook told Patton. "I hope you decide to turn it around and make something positive out of this."

Patton said, "I understand. I'm ready to go."

The bouncers' deaths were the second fatal shooting at the West Side adult club that features nude dancers. Tyler Henderson is serving a four-year prison term for an August 2006 melee there that resulted in the death of Andre Price II and the wounding of security guard Chris Carter.

The club remains open. It has no liquor license but allows patrons to bring in alcoholic beverages.

Man pleads guilty to stabbing bouncer to death

NEW YORK (AP) — A man has pleaded guilty to stabbing a bouncer to death last year outside a bar, prosecutors said.

Michael Oquendo, 25, pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter on Tuesday in the death of Douglas Caranza-Castillo, 20, outside Las Playitas in Queens, District Attorney Richard Brown's office said.

Oquendo, of Manhattan, will receive a 15-year prison term when he is sentenced on Feb. 28, Brown's office said Wednesday in a statement.

Caranza-Castillo was stabbed after asking Oquendo and some of his friends to quiet down inside the bar, Brown's office said.

Oquendo has been held without bail since he was arrested after the May 6, 2007, killing.

Bouncer killed at city restaurant

Fredericksburg police last night were looking for a teenager suspected in the city's first slaying this year.

Brandon Lee Smith, 19, of Fredericksburg is accused of shooting and killing 30-year-old Dasan Ka'Wila Richardson early yesterday. The death occurred at Mi Casa Restaurant in Central Park, where Richardson, also a Fredericksburg resident, worked as a bouncer, police said.

Smith is charged with first-degree murder and using a firearm in the commission of a felony. A search for him yesterday in the Riverside Manor townhouse complex, off Fall Hill Avenue in the city, was unsuccessful.

According to police spokeswoman Natatia Bledsoe, Richardson was shot twice in the chest during an altercation at the front door of the restaurant about 1:15 a.m. Rescue workers treated him at the scene within minutes, but Richardson was pronounced dead at Mary Washington Hospital shortly after getting there. His wife met rescue workers at the hospital.

The shooting was apparently the result of Smith's being kicked out of the nightspot a short time earlier for being underage. Bledsoe said Smith returned about 10 minutes later with "four or five" friends and they got into an altercation with the bouncers. At some point, police said, Smith pulled out a gun and shot Richardson. It is not clear whether Smith had the gun all along or got it after being forced to leave the business.

Bledsoe said patrons were fleeing from the nightspot as police were arriving, but police got enough information to identify Smith as the suspect. A search warrant was obtained for a home in Riverside Manor, and the city's Special Equipment and Tactical Team went into the home. No one was there, Bledsoe said, but police did recover some evidence there as well as at the slaying scene.

Prior to the raid, police sent a reverse 911 message to residents in that area urging them to stay inside while police activity was under way. Another call was made later telling residents to return to business as usual.

Richardson, a native of Hawaii who was 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighed more than 300 pounds, also had a Riverside Manor address, but Bledsoe said there is no evidence that he and Smith knew each other.

The investigation is continuing, and Bledsoe said it is possible that charges will be filed against others involved in the disturbance.

Smith is no stranger to city police. According to court records, he has two trials scheduled next month in Fredericksburg Circuit Court on marijuana and cocaine distribution charges.

Lawsuit filed against Officer who spat at bouncer

A federal lawsuit filed yesterday alleges that an off-duty D.C. police officer spat on a nightclub bouncer in a drunken rage and that once police were called to the scene, her fellow officers tried to protect her and not arrest her.

The civil suit, filed by the bouncer, says the officer, Talika Moore, was allowed to leave the scene Nov. 10 and was arrested only after a police supervisor learned that there was a videotape of the incident. Moore, 27, was charged with assault and faces a status hearing Monday in D.C. Superior Court.

According to the suit, filed in U.S. District Court, Moore was not allowed into the Avenue club, in the 600 block of New York Avenue NW, because she appeared drunk and belligerent. Moore, who was with a friend, confronted the bouncer, Phillip T. Stewart, pulled out her badge and announced that she was going inside, the suit says.

"I am the [expletive] police. . . . I'm getting into this [expletive]. . . . You not going to stop me," Moore said, according to the suit, filed against the D.C. government and Moore as an individual and an officer. The suit also contends that Moore identified herself as an officer in the 7th Police District and said she had been an officer for six years.

When Stewart still refused to let her in, Moore spat on him, the suit says.

She also began rifling through her purse, Stewart said in an interview, and he feared that she was going to pull out a gun.

Stewart flagged down a D.C. police patrol car, but the officer told him that "he was not going to make out a complaint against another officer," according to the suit. The suit identifies the officer only by his car number.

A witness who was standing outside the club then called 911, Stewart said.

A police sergeant arrived at the scene and told Moore to leave in her friend's car, according to the suit. Other officers and supervisors began showing up outside the club, and when Stewart told one of them, another sergeant, that he had a videotape of the incident, Moore was called back to the scene, according to the suit. She had been gone for about 20 minutes, Stewart said.

Moore confronted Stewart again, angry that police had been called, and when an officer told her to back off, she did not, the suit says. That was when Moore was arrested and charged with simple assault, a misdemeanor, for spitting on Stewart, according to the suit.

The suit seeks $1 million in compensatory and punitive damages.

"I'm hopeful the U.S. attorney will prosecute this case with the same vigor that they do ordinary citizens when their assaults are caught on videotape," said Stewart's attorney, Jim Bell, about the criminal case.

Channing Phillips, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office, said, "We treat all cases equally."

Assistant Police Chief Peter Newsham, who heads the internal affairs bureau, said regulations prevent the administrative investigation from starting until the U.S. attorney's office has finished the criminal case. But he said his office will immediately investigate the allegations that other officers were trying to cover for Moore that night.

"We will look into those actions by other members of the department," Newsham said.

Police spokeswoman Traci Hughes said the D.C. attorney general's office would review the civil suit.

At least 300 to be refused private-security licences

At least 300 people will be refused a Private Security Authority (PSA)licence to work as door supervisors or security guards in the coming weeks, mainly due to concerns about previous criminal convictions.

However, the final figure could be significantly higher, as only about half of some 20,000 applications have so far been fully processed, including vetting by An Garda Síochána.

In an interview with The Irish Times , PSA chief executive Geraldine Larkin said she was also aware of at least one case where an individual would be refused a licence because of a rape conviction.

However, she said she could not say that a conviction for rape would automatically disqualify someone from having a licence. She said the authority would have to take into account the judgment of the courts in a particular case.

"I can't categorically say to you that I will refuse all convictions for rape," Ms Larkin added.

The PSA assesses each application for a licence on a "case by case" basis, she said, while also noting that a decision by her organisation to refuse an application could be subject to an appeal.

"It's very difficult to take a one strike and you're out approach because this could potentially be a person's livelihood . . . and if you argue that they've done their time and that there's been no criminality since, that person is entitled to a chance, to an opportunity."

Approximately half of refusals to issue a licence are due to a previous conviction for assault or theft, while in a further 30 per cent of cases, the individual has a previous conviction for a drugs-related offence.

In a revelation likely to prompt some concern, the PSA, which is overseeing reforms in the operation of the private security sector, also believes the vast majority of those whom it has deemed unfit to hold a licence are working in the industry.

They are employed either as "static" security guards, typically in retail stores, office complexes, industrial estates and on building sites, or as door supervisors or "bouncers" in pubs and nightclubs.

It is also thought that as many as 5,000 others have not yet applied for a licence, prompting suggestions that many within this group may not be doing so because they know their previous criminal record would lead to a refusal.

The authority has previously revealed that almost one in 10 applicants had a conviction, but that the majority of these - for example convictions for minor road traffic offences - are not deemed relevant to their application.

Applicants may be refused for other reasons, such as failure to provide the relevant training documentation and failure to provide a criminal record certificate from a foreign jurisdiction.

The authority says it has started issuing the first batch of approximately 4,000 licences over the Christmas period and will start issuing notices of refusal in the coming weeks.

Since last April it has been an offence to operate in a designated sector of the private security industry without a licence. It is also an offence to employ an unlicensed person. The PSA also said that as many as 70 per cent of applications were incorrectly filled out.

Security guards not subject to drug tests

MOTORISTS and train drivers face tougher drug and alcohol checks than private security guards, even though many guards use guns and some are suspected of having links to drug dealers, bikie gangs and organised crime.

The state's 32,000 licensed bouncers and crowd and venue controllers are not required to face random drug tests, despite concerns that the use of alcohol, drugs and steroids could make security guards aggressive.

Sources within the industry have told the Herald drug testing could be a more effective way to supervise the industry than fingerprint or background checks, because corrupt guards might not have criminal records.

Australia's booming security industry is worth several billion dollars a year. But police are concerned it has been infiltrated by organised criminals who sell drugs - particularly amphetamines - inside Sydney's nightclubs and pubs.

The State Government recently introduced laws disqualifying those with convictions relating to terrorism, riot and stalking from holding a licence, extending an existing ban on anyone with a history of firearms, drugs or assault convictions.

The changes also included a "fitness to work" policy, which gave employers the responsibility of developing guidelines for their workers. However, it did not specify the introduction of random drug and alcohol tests.

The Christian Democrat MP Gordon Moyes is lobbying for targeted drug testing of bouncers, crowd controllers and venue controllers.

He introduced a private member's bill to Parliament in 2005 that he said would ensure crowd controllers were not under the influence of drugs or alcohol and reduce the prevalence of drug dealing in nightclubs and hotels.

"There's no question we'd clean up the industry," he said. "There have been far too many deaths. [Violence between bouncers and patrons] is basically a nightly occurrence in places like Darlinghurst and Kings Cross."

He presented a letter signed by several academics to Parliament that said bouncers had "enormous scope" for hidden misconduct because they worked in venues with high alcohol consumption and bravado among young male patrons. "The primary cause for concern is the use of steroids and amphetamines that contribute to aggressive behaviour and impaired performance," the letter said.

The chief executive of the Australian Security Industry Association, Bryan de Caires, said he was working with a drug-testing kit provider to give companies a cost-effective way to test their employees. He said companies had to be responsible, because they faced liability issues if there was any kind of problem.

"You want people out there who are doing what they're supposed to do in a state that makes them capable of doing it."

Mr de Caires said many security companies were moving away from giving their employees guns, because the risks were too great.

A spokesman for the Police Minister, David Campbell, said the Government was not opposed to Dr Moyes's bill. However, there were problems such as the cost, the effect on the present system and administration.

The Government had introduced reforms in September, including a licensing system to ensure new entrants were of good character, he said.

Deal OK'd in killing of 2 bouncers

Man pleads guilty to stabbing bouncer to death

Bouncer killed at city restaurant

Lawsuit filed against Officer who spat at bouncer

At least 300 to be refused private-security licences

Security guards not subject to drug tests