'We're outside bouncers'

Sep. 4—The News-Gazette's Ethan Simmons spent a not-so-quiet Friday evening making the rounds downtown with the city of Champaign's privately-contracted security patrol

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It's a cool, clear Friday night in downtown Champaign. Walnut Street lights cast a gentle orange glow on passers-by and patrons enjoying a night out.

Caught in the glow are AGB-hired security officers Travis Bowers and Ernest Willis. Their night is just getting started.

Here's what you should know about Champaign's downtown security patrol: There's five of them, including one supervisor, Bowers. They're paid well — but not $48-an-hour, as has been reported. And they've been working downtown for a solid three months now, Thursday through Saturday, from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m., though they'll call it at 3:30 if it's a slow night.

AGB Investigative Services, a Chicago-based security firm, was hired to provide the downtown patrol by the Champaign City Council in May.

The short-staffed Champaign Police Department wanted private security to deter disorder downtown while Champaign officers focused on other areas of the city. AGB will get an estimated $203,986 for services in 2022.

The News-Gazette tagged along for the majority of a Friday shift last week. Here's what went down.

9:20 p.m.

Supervisor Bowers is approached by a local man, alleging he was assaulted in West Side Park. Bowers takes out a notepad and jots down the man's account, getting a suspect description, then radios in to the Champaign police front desk.

Champaign Police Chief Tim Tyler shows up on the scene and engages the man, gathering more details until the alleged victim walks off.

"How's your night going?" Tyler asks the officers.

"Good, as of right now," Willis says.

One of Champaign's new neighborhood ambassadors joins the conversation; she's on shift until midnight on weekends, answering questions for downtown patrons. At this point, most downtown regulars know to relay the more serious content to the Champaign police officers on patrol.

"We've had people come up saying 'someone's about to fight,' or 'someone's passed out in the middle of the street,' stuff like that," Bowers said.

9:30 p.m.

The streets tighten up. Willis, Bowers and a couple other officers take a rack of traffic cones and place them in the open parking spots on Walnut and Neil streets.

If a car isn't gone by 10 p.m., "it's tow time," Bowers says. He's seen everything from Porsches, "beaters with heaters," even a motorcycle get hitched off from a parking spot.

"That one hurt — it's an unwritten rule that you never touch another man's bike," Bowers says.

Once that's done, it's time for rounds. The downtown patrol members stop by open businesses in the 2-mile radius, speak with security staff and scout out any safety concerns.

About an hour prior, Bowers huddled with the other four officers at the Champaign police station and gave a scouting report of what to expect that night.

They knew the University of Illinois football team planned to stop downtown — the players weren't as much of a concern as the people following them, Bowers says.

And a 300-person pub crawl might be snaking through.

So far, there hasn't been much — just a few international students who tried, unsuccessfully, to get into a bar without IDs, Bowers says.

9:45 p.m.

First stop: Guido's. The bar's head of security ushers Willis and Bowers to the basement, where a University of Illinois alumni event is going on.

The pair make easy conversation with some alums. Meanwhile, two other AGB officers begin blocking the entrances to the Busey Bank parking lot, where late-night crowds have recently gathered.

Barricades are a relatively new presence in the downtown area. Rowdy summer nights have prompted the downtown patrol and Champaign police to shut down common gathering spots.

By 10 p.m., a Champaign police car and AGB's security vehicle are parked at the Neil and Walnut entrances to Chester Street, next to the city building and Quality Inn.

"This whole area would be full of cars playing loud music, people drinking their own alcohol, a massive crowd of people all the way to the end of the street, from one end of the block to the other," Bowers says.

After several fights, a couple shootings, and an assault inside a bar, the patrol began blocking off Chester Street. The crowd soon moved to Main Street, in front of Guido's and the old News-Gazette building.

"It was like a powder keg every single night," Bowers says, with three to four incident reports apiece for each of his attending officers.

The turning point was one active evening in early August, when "a large, unruly crowd" gathered there, Lt. Andre Davis says.

Bowers says they turned the corner, and a near-40-person brawl was happening on Main. After they made a call to Champaign police, six or seven squad cars showed up and tried to control the crowd.

The next night, barricades were installed on Main Street's Neil and Walnut entrances.

"The way CPD describes it, it's like trying to stop flowing water," Bowers says. "It's got to flow somewhere. So we're trying to get it to flow out of the area."

10 p.m.

Bowers and Willis enter the Axe Bar. It's "Ladies Night," and patrons are cheering on a guest who's killing it in karaoke.

Her voice is interrupted by the blaps of axes hitting targets in the bar.

Bowers grabs a Red Bull, "his life source" in late hours of the night, while Willis goes stoic, scanning the area.

Willis got his start working as a bouncer in Chicago clubs. "The biggest thing for me was when (NBA) All-Star Weekend was in Chicago," he said. "Everybody was down there."

Downtown regulars have nicknames for the AGB officers. The 6-foot-8 Willis is called "KG," or his preferred name, "Bigg Texx," which he's had since high school.

"Champaign's slow, it's not like the city. I came down here to take care of my son," Willis says.

Last year, he was hired as one of AGB's hall monitors, and placed in Centennial High School. There, he's known as "Unc," working Monday through Friday, the day he gets about two hours of sleep.

"If kids complained, they came to me," he says. For him, the downtown gig is easier than the school one, though new Principal Scott Savage has made a good impression. "He's mobile, walking the hallways, talking to kids," Willis says.

Bowers joined the downtown team a few weeks in. His mustache is the focus of his nicknames: Hank (after the cop Steve Zahn played in 2003's "National Security") and Rooster (Miles Teller's character in the new "Top Gun").

"If there's a movie with a mustache in it, I've been called it," Bowers said.

Off the job, Bowers is a volunteer firefighter for Savoy's department. He moved to Champaign a few months ago, and applied for the downtown security job after seeing it in the paper. It paid well, and he had plenty of experience as a bouncer and private security guy.

To his surprise, he landed the supervisor role. He thinks his military service had an impact on that.

Bowers and Willis make their way to the Friday Night Live area near Pour Bros., which is blocked off every week for performances. From what they hear, the 300-person bar crawl is more like 200 people, cycling through intermittently.

10:25 p.m.

Jupiter's is pretty laid back this time of night. Bowers chats with staff inside while Willis hangs around the entrance.

Suddenly, Homer's Andrew Smith walks up and puts his arm around Willis, and the two share a laugh.

"Pedestrians will high-five us and talk to us," Bowers explains.

A group outside Jupiter's assembles for a picture, and the pair head back to the southern sector of downtown.

That's when they spot a man who matches the suspect description of the alleged assault at West Side Park. Bowers and Willis begin trailing from a distance, as Bowers radios in to the police front desk.

"Since we don't make arrests, we don't write tickets. If there's something that requires CPD's attention or they need to handle it, that's when we radio up Post-C, tell them what we have," Bowers says.

The man eventually goes to the Illinois Terminal, just outside their coverage area. Soon enough, police officers arrive on scene.

Explaining the difference between security officers and police earlier in the week, police Lt. Davis said the AGB team carries radios that "operate separately from the police band. This is partly because they do not act in a police capacity and partly because of the limited areas of their patrols.

"The radios they are provided connect them to the front desk of CPD and allow for direct communication with our officers without the need to utilize the countywide 9-1-1 center."

11:15 p.m.

By the time they reach Bentley's Pub, the streets are quieting down.

The area near the American Legion on Hickory Street used to be in their contract coverage area, they say, but the level of violence delegated it back to Champaign police.

Before Bowers and Willis started the job, they expected a full loadout — training for tasers, pepper spray, possibly firearms. But by the time they signed the contract, it was down to handcuffs.

"I think we do a good job with what we have," Bowers says.

If there's an immediate threat of harm to someone, or a fight about to start, one of the patrol's options is to form a barrier between the fighters.

One video of that maneuver apparently made waves on social media.

"That made Tex Facebook famous," Bowers says.

"All the Centennial kids said, 'Damn, Unc, you're breaking up fights now?'" Willis says. "There are times we can de-escalate fights before it gets there."

Willis' favorite part of the downtown job is meeting new people, and deterring problems before they start.

"My experience working in the environment in Chicago has given me the ability to just mingle with the people, to get them to know me and get them to know that I'm here for safety first, I'm here for you before you get yourself in trouble.

"It's nothing hard, we're just outside. We're outside bouncers."

A man grabs their attention and hands Bowers a lost wallet. It has ID, money, even a Social Security card, and apparently belongs to someone from the local homeless population. Unless they spot the man, they'll bring it back to police headquarters when their shift ends.

Midnight

When possible, this is when officers take their break. Four hours of a patrol can take a toll on the lower back.

During break time, Bowers and Willis chat with fellow AGB officer Scott Harding about what they've seen so far.

Apparently, one man was trying to get a minor into a nearby bars and caused a scene.

"We don't ask anyone to get off the premises until one of the owners or the bouncers say: 'We need this guy gone,'" Bowers says.

If they don't listen initially, the officer lets them know they could spend the night in jail. If a call has to be made to the police department, the person could be hit with charges of trespassing and possibly public intoxication.

Bowers backs out the AGB vehicle onto Chester Street to let out two folks who've legally parked there.

12:40 p.m.

After their break, the two head back to Guido's shortly before closing time. It's active, but a far cry from the massive summer gatherings they witnessed just a few weeks ago.

"Post-COVID, things are just different. People have been locked up for almost three years," a bouncer says. "That's everywhere, not just Champaign or Chicago."

Guido's begins to funnel folks out at 1 a.m., but the two officers wait outside to see if anyone else congregates. There are a few people chatting, but nothing to be worried about.

All the chairs and tables in front of the bar are stacked or pushed out of the way.

As Bowers and Willis make their way across Main Street, some pedestrians start ribbing them. They take it in stride. "We've been called everything — fake police, 'Paw Patrol,'" Bowers says.

The two make their way back to Bentley's, which will soon close. So far, so good.

"The few minor incidents you've seen, take that and times it by 10 for the bad nights," Bowers says.

1:30 a.m.

Bowers and Willis are back near their starting point when shouts rebound across the Busey parking lot.

There's a couple in a heated argument, which a few AGB officers respond to. "I wasn't going to intervene," Bowers says, "because they called me over and it was just a couple fighting. And next thing I know, its 'let go of me, let go of me.'"

The officers carefully maneuver themselves between the couple — it's an emotional situation, and Bowers tries to get some information; namely where the woman's car is.

After 15 minutes of pleas and officer positioning, the two are separated, the man walks off and the woman gets into her car to drive off. Willis offers some final advice to both of them before they depart.

"Because we're trying to remain as hands-off as possible; it's just about creating that separation," Bowers says afterward.

The rest of the weekend, officers report, is surprisingly quiet — for the most part. They called it a Saturday morning around 3:45 a.m. to write their reports, and the following night's post-football traffic wasn't anything to write home about.

As they are heading in after their shift, Bowers hears a "pop-pop-pop" to the north.

"Next thing you know, every police officer in Champaign was there," Bowers says.

A man was shot to death at a strip mall north of downtown, in the 700 block of Neil Street. A 32-year-old Urbana man was arrested on a murder charge.

Bowers, Willis and their three AGB colleagues are contracted to keep monitoring downtown on weekends for the rest of the year.

"I expected us to be little bit more hands-on, maybe have a little bit more authority," Bowers says. "The reality is we're still able to do our job, and that's because of the rapport we've established with people down here."