Fresno police want to control gangs at mall. Advocates say it violates civil rights
Fresno police have added some new procedures aimed at increasing safety at Fashion Fair mall, but one has raised some eyebrows over its potential to violate civil rights, according to advocates.
Fresno Police Chief Paco Balderrama and others met last week with mall executives to begin to implement new policies at the shopping center at Shaw Avenue and First Street.
The push followed a recent brawl that ended with one teen stabbed, which followed other public violence that caught the attention of residents.
The new policies include an increased police presence and access to security cameras, but an effort to turn away gang members or anyone potentially causing trouble at the mall has drawn criticism.
Balderrama said the policy targets people who are at the shopping center to cause trouble or have been in trouble with the law previously.
“We know that there’s certain people that are more likely to cause problems at the mall,” Balderrama told The Bee in an exclusive interview this week.
“A high percentage of our shootings — a high percentage of our homicides, a high percentage of the violent crimes in our city — are committed by gang members, but yet we know being in a gang or part of a gang is not against the law.”
He said mall security or employees can ask shoppers who cause a disturbance to leave. If they don’t, police can get involved.
“Stereotyping is not something we’re going to do; categorizing people is also something we’re not going to do,” he said. “This is strictly going to be based on current or past behavior.”
He said officers, particularly those in the Multi-Agency Gang Enforcement Consortium (MAGEC), can identify gang members and often know them by name.
Gang members tend to identify themselves as being in a gang, Balderrama said, and gangs tend to have specific tattoos and wear specific colors or a sports team’s attire.
He said the policy would be based only on the actions of people in the mall, and does not target people based on skin color.
Reaction to Fresno mall gang policy
Civil rights advocates are not convinced police can apply that sort of policy fairly or even legally.
There is court precedence that equates shopping malls with traditional public squares, making them much harder to restrict, according to Chessi Thacher, a senior staff attorney for the Democracy and Civic Engagement program at the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.
A policy to turn away people gives too much discretion to officers, she said.
“It should worry everyone that law enforcement could restrict the movement of certain individuals based on their appearance or dress,” Thacher said. “Additionally, it’s dangerous to give law enforcement license to profile people, given their tendency to escalate situations and to use deadly force.”
Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer also met with mall security and the chief. He declined to comment for this story through spokesperson Sontaya Rose, but addressed the potential policy last week during a news conference.
“No. 1, how do you know they’re a gang member? No. 2, are tattoos and clothing taken into account?” he asked rhetorically. “So there’s a lot of discussion that has to occur. Whatever policy is in place, it has to be consistently enforced throughout.”
Dyer last week said he himself was recently turned away from the mall’s new bowling alley because he was wearing a Fresno State Bulldogs shirt, which is attire some associate with a local gang.
Some mall employees said they like the idea of a more visible police presence because they believe it would deter crime.
Jill Crecelius said she’s managed Sports Station at the east end of the mall for more than three decades, and believes the mall is safe. But, she added, there’s a perception by some residents it is not.
“For the people who think it’s unsafe, they see an officer, they feel better,” Crecelius said. “Those that do want to cause trouble, they see an officer and go away.”
She said some of the store’s younger employees have been rattled by violence at the mall in the past year, but said those incidents get a lot of attention and the positive experiences at the mall go less often noticed.
Not every Fresno resident thinks seeing an officer is comforting.
The potential for the policy to turn into racial profiling is too high, according to Sandra Celedon, the executive director of Fresno Building Healthy Communities and one of the heads of the Fresno Commission for Police Reform.
“Police treat people — men of color — in ways that are really undignified,” she said. “We want (police) to stop pulling our students over when they walk home from school. We want you to stop calling people gang members.”
Celedon said when officers stop young people as they walk down the street, they drive a wedge between themselves and the community. Potentially carrying similar policies into the mall can only hurt community relations, she said.
She noted reporting over the years that have shown Fresno police arrest and pull over people of color at disproportionate rates.
The ACLU found between 2011 and 2016, Black and Latino people accounted for 80% of people shot by police in Fresno, while making up 52% of the population.
From 2005 and 2014, Latinos accounted for 51% of felony arrests in Fresno, while Black residents accounted for 20%, according to the civil rights organization the Advancement Project California.
Black drivers in Fresno are stopped by police around twice the rate of white and Hispanic drivers, according to a Fresno Bee analysis of police department data from the first half of 2020. Black drivers were also searched, arrested, and handcuffed more often than other races, the data shows.
The Fresno Commission for Police Reform also included policies and training meant to tamp down racial bias and profiling among its 73 recommendations. Celedon said the changes at the mall appear to go against that recommendation.
Fashion Fair executives issued a statement to The Bee after being asked about a potential policy that could target suspected gang members. It was attributed to Joey Elliot, the general manager at the mall.
“Access to our shopping center is always based on behavior and compliance with our publicly posted code of conduct,” the statement said. “Fashion Fair Mall is continuously evaluating the center’s comprehensive security plans in cooperation with the city of Fresno. We value our relationship with city leadership and law enforcement, and we feel the meeting was productive for all of those in attendance.”
Another mall employee, Asim Sikander, said he’d like to see an officer pass through his Outfitters store hourly if not more often. He said his store that sells clothes branded by rappers and other parts of hip hop culture often draws people who will shoplift.
“So everyone knows there’s a cop and they don’t dare do anything,” he said.
This month someone stole the equipment used to remove security tags from the clothing, he said, and he had to shutdown for the day.
Former public defender Emi Young said she has never encountered a policy like the one police have considered for Fashion Fair. She’s a staff attorney for the Criminal Justice Program at the ACLU of Northern California.
“I don’t think it’s routine,” she said. “It feels like they’re setting themselves up to violate civil liberties.”
Other new Fresno mall security policies
The mall previously contracted to have two Fresno police officers on site during business hours. Mall security agreed to increase that to three, Balderrama said.
Fresno police have prioritized filling those positions, he said. Officers can volunteer to work those shifts on their days off.
He said additional officers may also be assigned to Fashion Fair when staffing permits, and officers in that district are asked to file reports in their squad cars while parked in a visible place at the mall.
Balderrama said the police department also now has access to surveillance cameras in the mall.
This story was originally published March 24, 2022 at 8:00 AM.
