Vigilante king and his Uber-style law enforcement squad

MEET the suave businessman who is taking policing the crime-ridden streets of his city into his own hands. He’s beating the cops at their own game.

Vigilante king creates private police force

MEET Sidney Torres IV, the suave New Orleans businessman who is taking policing the city’s crime-ridden streets into his own hands.

The wealthy real estate developer was sick of the painfully slow police response to widespread gunfights, theft and drug offences, so he created an Uber-style app to clean up his neighbourhood.

He bought a fleet of black Polaris Rangers, fitted with blue flashing lights and iPads to deal with requests, and hired off-duty police officers as his team. The former waste disposal mogul, who managed a network of garbage trucks, told The New York Times: “I’m handling crime the same way I did trash.”

Torres’s foray into cleaning up New Orleans began when his home in the affluent French Quarter was burgled, just weeks before the bar next door was held up at gunpoint.

The self-assured 39-year-old responded with a $100,000 TV ad demanding action to from the mayor, Mitch Landrieu, to make residents feel safe again — featuring locals discussing their fears for the city. When the mayor challenged Torres to put his money where his mouth was, the entrepreneur came up with his daring solution.

The former rubbish truck king sees himself as the Batman of New Orleans.

He spent $US380,000 setting up his app in the French Quarter, and within six weeks, almost 10,000 people had downloaded it — twice the population of the area.

Users can describe an unfolding crime and the mobile interface will mark the incident as a red dot, and Torres’s private patrol squad, the French Quarter Task Force, as a green arrow. The aim is to always have three officers circling the neighbourhood of just one square mile, so they can respond within two minutes, where the police can take about 30.

The project is endorsed by the New Orleans Police Department, which has shrunk by about 500 officers since Hurricane Katrina, and many in the city welcome this injection of private cash.

The head of the Louisiana State Police even invited Torres to sit in on an undercover sting targeting human traffickers at a French Quarter hotel.

But other locals are concerned about the privatisation of policing, and fear that putting so much power in the hands of a man once known as “Trashanova” could stoke tensions.

Some locals have doubts about putting law enforcement in the hands of this forceful personality.

Torres recently worked with the city on moving on the “transient people” who loiter about the streets, usually not committing crimes but causing something of a nuisance for authorities. Where the city had delayed because of concerns around these people’s dogs, and their issues with diabetes, Torres called an animal protection service and made sure the medicine was available in the city’s prisons.

Many were up in arms about this ruthless destruction of the characters who some see as the beating heart of New Orleans, but Torres believes this bullish approach is vital. “The government loves its rules, so many pointless rules that just slow everything down,” he told The New York Times.

Torres, who compares himself to Bruce Wayne, has now hired retired rocket scientist Bob Simms to act as the Robin to his Batman, overseeing the day-to-day running of the service. He says neighbouring states have already expressed interest in the app, but he makes it clear that he is still very much in control.

“If someone doesn’t show up, I can see it on my phone: Why’s the truck still at the station?” he said. The businessman buys gift certificates to a steak house for officers who have done a good job, something his partners in City Hall worried might create a divide.

The Uber-style police force has already cleaned up the streets of the city’s troubled French Quarter.

Whatever people think, the enterprising plan has been a success, with assaults and armed robberies dropping by 30 per cent in the two months to May, and Torres’s force assisting on state arrests.

The New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau have agreed to finance the $US900,000-a-year scheme for the next five years. The mayor has hailed the project as part of a wider success story in privatising areas including sewage and recreation programs — saying that the rest of the nation needs to follow suit.

Torres’s disregard for authority and carelessness around sensitive information have raised eyebrows, but there’s no stopping this juggernaut.

Sidney Torres is leading the charge to turn cities into slick, efficient, clean machines.