From the current issue of New Orleans CityBusiness
Transvestite crime gangs pester Magazine Street owners
Robyn Lewis, owner of Dark Charm fashion and accessories for women, represents the first line of defense for the Magazine Street shop owners. She is the first to see them come strutting in their pumps down St. Andrew Street, the bewigged pack of thieves who have plagued the Lower Garden District since May.
Like an SOS flare, Lewis grabs her emergency phone list and starts calling.
"Theyre coming," she warns Eric Ogle a salesman at Vegas, a block down Magazine Street. Ogle, who was terrorized by the brazen crew two months earlier, alerts neighboring Winkys where manager Kendra Bonga braces for the onslaught.
Soon every shop owner in the 2000 block of Magazine Street has been alerted.
Sarah Celino at Trashy Diva eyes the door, ready to flip the lock at the first sight of the ringleaders pink jumpsuit and fluorescent red wig.
Down at Turncoats, where the fashion-happy gang once made off with more than $2,000 in merchandise, store manager Wes Davis stands ready.
Davis said it wasnt supposed to be like this. They survived Hurricane Katrinas Category 3 winds and the ensuing looters. They reopened despite the long odds of doing business in a devastated city. The last thing the Magazine Street shop owners expected to threaten their survival was a crime ring of transvestites.
"Theyre fearless," said Ogle. "Once they see something they like they wont stop until they have it. They dont care, theyll go to jail. Its really gotten bad. You know its ridiculous when everyone on the block knows who they are."
Expensive tastes
The transvestites first appeared in March when they raided Magazine Street like a marauding army of kleptomaniacal showgirls, said Davis, using clockwork precision and brute force to satisfy high-end boutique needs.
They first hit Vegas March 31 while Ogle was working.
"They come in groups of three or four. One tries to distract you while the others get the stuff and run out the door. Its very simple," Ogle said.
Next door at Winkys, Bonga heard people screaming inside Vegas, then saw a blur of cheap wigs and masculine legs in designer shoes streak past her door.
"All of a sudden our UPS guy dove out of the store and tried to tackle them and theres little Eric from next door on the sidewalk with a bunch of stuff he managed to grab from one of the guys," Bonga said. "The other two guys took off down the street and jumped into a car driven by a real girl."
Ogle gave police a description of the perpetrators African-American males ranging in height from 6 feet to 6-5. They all wore the same midriff shirts and wigs with twisted, dreadnaught hair.
"Theyre all very skinny and very flamboyant," Ogle said.
Two hours after the police left, the transvestites returned to Magazine Street to storm Turncoats just a block away from Vegas, and made off with more than $2,000 in merchandise.
"They move like clockwork," Davis said. "Two thousand dollars is a lot for our store to lose, especially being in the slow summer season. It makes it so I cant even mark my stuff down as much as I want to because Im trying to make up for what I lost."
In the ensuing weeks, the gang of transvestites continued their reign of terror. Sometimes they come dressed as men, though Bonga said it is obvious who they are based on their delicately plucked eyebrows. Sometimes they bring 2-year-old children to add to the level of distraction. They once returned to Vegas holding an "infant" that really was a Cabbage Patch doll wrapped in a blanket.
"Theyll make themselves scarce for a few weeks and then one day youll be busy with a customer and all of a sudden theres a whole slew of them in your store and theres nothing you can do because youre there by yourself," Lewis said.
Scarce evidence
The New Orleans Police Department investigated the Turncoats robbery but unless police catch a shoplifter in the act or in possession of stolen property there is little they can do besides take a report, said NOPD spokeswoman Bambi Hall.
"If store security states that someone took something, and then by the time we apprehend them they dont have the property, then theres really nothing we can do because its their word against the (suspect)," Hall said.
Lewis said she understands the understaffed NOPD has bigger priorities than to "catch a drag queen running down the street with an armful of clothing." So the store owners created their own watchdog system unofficially known as the "Drag Queen Alert List," a comprehensive phone roster of every business on the block with stars next to those who carry guns.
When one shop owner spots a gang member, they immediately warn everyone on the block and raise their defenses in unison.
When they enter Turncoats, Davis said he locks them inside the store, which "freaks them out," and they leave.
Celino said she doesnt even wait for them to enter the store.
"A couple weeks ago, a group of them was outside and one looked like the guy who came in here and ripped us off so I locked the door on them," Celino said. "I know maybe thats rude, if they really were innocent people, but theres nothing else we can do. You look like the queens who ripped us off so Im sorry but I have to lock the door."
Ogle and Bonga say they regret being forced to resort to such profiling but they feel they have no other choice. The transvestites, Ogle said, appear to be drug-addicted and fearless in their lust for designer shoes, jackets and jewelry.
"The citys not functioning the way it was and Im sure a lot of them were getting some kind of government aid, which they probably arent getting any more so theyre incredibly desperate," Ogle said.
And sometimes violent.
When Lewis co-owned Trashy Diva, they attacked one of her partners in the French Quarter location, throwing her to the ground and tossing a heavy mannequin on top of her.
"Theyre kind of confused because they think theyre women so they dont mind hitting women, but theyre dudes. If you get hit by one its like getting hit by a dude. ... Because the police are so poorly staffed, were kind of on our own but the system we have seems to be working. I havent seen them in at least a week but theyll be back. Theyre never gone for long."