EFL: NEW ORLEANS — 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. “They’re 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 Winky’s 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 ringleader’s 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 wasn’t supposed to be like this. They survived Hurricane Katrina’s 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.
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. It’s very simple,” Ogle said.
Next door at WinkyÂ’s, Bonga heard people screaming inside Vegas, then saw a blur of cheap wigs and masculine legs in designer shoes streak past her door.
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. “They’re all very skinny and very flamboyant,” Ogle said.
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.
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.
The transvestites, Ogle said, appear to be drug-addicted and fearless in their lust for designer shoes, jackets and jewelry.