Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Shocking Secrets Uncovered At Local Theme Park

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 01 Feb 2003 15:38:18 -0500

Shocking Secrets Uncovered At Local Theme Park

Security Guard Alleges 'Unwritten Policy' Aims To Anger Customers

POSTED: 6:24 p.m. PST January 30, 2003
UPDATED: 7:33 a.m. PST January 31, 2003

LOS ANGELES -- It's the largest regional theme park company in the world. More than
50 million customers visit their 39 parks -- including one just outside Los Angeles.

It's a place where families go to have fun. Right? Well, it
depends on what color you are according to sworn testimony of
a former employee.

"If they were blacks, we were told by security supervisors that
they're the loudest people, the loudest, ethnic people, that
they were the most easy to antagonize," says Former Security
Guard David Paland.

And, Paland says it wasn't just African-Americans. He says
Hispanics were also targeted.

Former Park Employee Donald Rubio claims security guards implied that he was a gang
member.

"They didn't ask me (if I was a gang member). They just told me that gang members
were not welcome in their park," says Rubio.

Rubio says he was stopped at the front gate in 1998 even after he told security guards
he worked there.

"It became a challenge to us. We would almost bet on it sometimes, you know. Like,
okay, can he piss them off? I don't know, and they would," says Paland.

Paland is talking about his job at Six Flags Magic Mountain where he worked in 1999.

"We were shown if you do this, they'll react. If you do this, they'll spit at you. If they

spit at you, that's assault," says Paland, who claims there was an unwritten policy
among security guards to make park-goers angry.

An unwritten policy Paland says was spelled out in training classes and in the field by
his
own direct supervisors. Paland was later fired after giving notice that he planned to
quit.
But, he swears his story is true -- even under oath.

Sheila Burnett and Sheryl Braswell, two librarians, from San Diego, who along with a
group of teenage girls, were thrown out of the park in August of 2000.

"It changed their lives. And, they are scarred by it," says Burnett.

Scarred from a day at the park she says that was supposed to be about fun, but ended
up about lost innocence.

"Yeah, they grew up real fast that day," says Burnett.

Braswell says her group was cornered by security guards after being accused of cutting
in line.

"You would have thought that we had broken into a store and stole a million dollars or
something. There were so many security guards. So many video cameras. They had us
surrounded," says Braswell.

Team Four Reports has exclusively obtained pictures -- actual photographs of what
happened that day at the park-taken by the librarians and their teens.

"And, I kept asking the guy, 'What happened?' And, he said. 'You're trespassing. And,
we will arrest you!' Girls were crying. They felt hurt, upset, embarrassed, scared. There
were so many security guards at one time. It was scary. They put their hand up in their
face," says Braswell.

"Out of all the people in the world, I had to go through it. Why did it have to happen to
me?" says Lisa Morris.

There was even an Olympic athlete who claims to be a victim.

Mike Arias is the coordinating attorney handling the massive class action suit against
Magic Mountain and its parent company, Six Flags, Inc.

"Please, we're not saying everyone who works at Magic Mountain is a racist. What we're
really focusing here on is the security department at Magic Mountain," says Arias.

It's a major class action lawsuit pending certification that could involve thousands of
past customers.

"They're either librarians, or postal workers, or people with their own business who come
with a church group, and the same thing happens to them," says Attorney Kenneth
Lipton.

Based on statistics from Magic Mountain's own files, class action attorneys project a
disturbing trend for kicking people out of the park for line cutting. Over a five-year
period from 1997 to 2001, about 50 percent of Magic Mountain's customers were
Caucasian, about 34 percent were Hispanic, and only about seven percent were
African-American. Yet, of all the people kicked out of the park for line cutting,
amazingly, 53 percent were African-American.

And, then there's Danny Everett, an Olympic Gold Medalist who has never told the story
of what he claims happened to him at Magic Mountain -- until now.

"I was shoved in the back again and told I needed to leave the property," says Everett.

Everett was at Magic Mountain with his family in September 1998, when he was accused
of cutting in line -- an allegation he denies.

Everett says he was beaten, handcuffed, taunted, and worse.

"I was choked and while I was handcuffed and still being choked, I was threatened with
pepper spray," says Everett.

And, there's more. Everett says he was chained to a bench.

"I was out there over two hours and denied bathroom privileges after being asked over
and over," says Everett.

Magic Mountain charged him with battery and trespass. But, Danny Everett was later
cleared of those charges. He filed a civil lawsuit against the park-separate from the
class action lawsuit. So, after hearing all these stories, Team Four Reports decided to
find out first-hand what was going on.

We showed up at the park one Sunday last month. We didn't know any of the guards or
any of the people we interviewed. We just observed.

We watched four men arrive at the front gate. Out of the blue, security guards picked
them out of the crowd. All of a sudden, five more guards arrive to escort them out. Who
were they kicking out of the park? Domingo Guiterrez, a Nextel salesman.

"The way they came at us, we were completely like threatened. So, we just had to go
away," says Guiterrez.

"You don't train security guards to respond as police officers do," says Arias.

But, former Security Guard Paland says his former colleagues acted more like the mafia
than a police department.

"That is completely absurd. We would not be in business with those types of policies,"
says Gallard.

The CEO of Six Flags, Inc. offered to sit down with us, then declined. In his place, the
company offered us a spokesperson.

"In general, we do not remove people based on race, it is entirely based on behavior.
Line cutting is caused for removal from the park," says Gallardo.

"Someone needs to take control of that security department and get them in line,
because they are out of control," says Everett.

When asked if there is a point where Magic Mountain security guards can use force,
Gallardo said "absolutely not."

"Our security procedures are in place to protect the guests in the park," he said.

"They seem to turn the other cheek. And say as long, as we don't get caught in what
you're doing we don't care. But this time they got caught," says Everett.

Two pictures of Danny Everett show to very different images. In one he is standing on
the Olympic podium getting the Gold medal, in the other, he is beaten and handcuffed to
a bench at Magic Mountain.

Everett's civil lawsuit is not going to go away. While Magic Mountain is officially
fighting
the matter in court, sources tell us they may settle the suit. Over the past 20 years,
there have been racial discrimination lawsuits against the park-some won, some quietly
settled. But nothing as big as this pending class action lawsuit. NBC4 Team Reports will
keep you posted.

http://www.nbc4.tv/news/1947637/detail.html

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