(Above) House of Blues in late afternoon from hotel terrace. East tower ramp at left. West tower and Wacker Drive in distance.

Since it opened in 1996, the 1,300-seat House of Blues at Marina City has hosted a show or other event almost every night, and a small army of security officers has arguably kept safe many thousands of people. But on October 12, 2009, Chicago police were called to HOB to protect a patron from a security officer.

Brittney Hernandez, a 23-year-old lighting designer in Chicago, was at House of Blues for a concert by the pop rock band Hanson, best known for its 1997 hit song, MMMBop.

After the show, Hernandez walked about half a block north to a driveway used by tour buses to get to House of Blues. She hoped to glimpse the band as their bus left Marina City and turned onto Kinzie Street. “I was super excited because I was a really big fan growing up,” recalled Hernandez (left). “It was my first [Hanson] show that I got to see.”

At about 11:30 p.m., she took a photo of the driveway and that is what witnesses, police, and court documents agree provoked an HOB security officer, Darrell Gibson, to confront Hernandez, get into a verbal altercation, and then physically assault her. “We were sitting on a public sidewalk and a tour bus began to come up the driveway and she took a picture of the driveway to the alley,” said a witness, Anna Vaughn. “The guards were already pissed that we went by the buses and we were informed that [although] it is public property and we were not [trespassing] by going down there, [it was] a safety issue and we politely made our way to the sidewalk.” (Right) This driveway (photographed in November 2009), between the then-unfinished Museum of Broadcast Communications and Harry Caray’s Italian Steakhouse, leads to the marina level of Marina City and House of Blues, where tour buses load and unload. (Click on image to view larger version.)

After Hernandez photographed the driveway, Vaughn says Gibson “freaked.”

He ran about 20 feet up to Hernandez, told her to give him the camera, then, according to Hernandez, he “ripped it out of my hands.”

What happened next was captured on a smartphone belonging to Tiffany Bryant, a friend of Hernandez. The video showed Gibson striking Hernandez in the face. She then falls to the ground. Shortly after that, he strikes her again. She crumples to the ground once more and is motionless for several seconds. Another security officer in the video is heard on his radio asking that a detail officer named “Murph” be sent to the area. He tells the woman that a police officer is on his way.

(Left) In this enhanced frame from smartphone video, the man at right, Darrell Gibson, has just struck in the face Brittney Hernandez, who falls to the ground. The incident happened on the south side of Kinzie Street, in a private driveway that leads to the marina level of Marina City. In the background is Harry Caray’s Italian Steakhouse.

Hernandez says Gibson did not tell her why he wanted to take her camera. She said Gibson ripped her hair, and that other HOB security officers saw the assault but did not try to stop it.

When police arrived, they spoke briefly with Hernandez and then arrested Gibson.

“I was really just in shock and didn’t say much,” she said. “All the witnesses pretty much spoke for me.”

She suffered minor injuries to her face. Gibson, age 31, from Sauk Village, south of Chicago, was charged with misdemeanor battery and released after posting a $1,000 bond.

House of Blues said in a statement, “We take our responsibility to maintain the safety of both our patrons and the artists who play at the House of Blues very seriously. We are looking into the incident and will cooperate fully with the authorities.”

Gibson pleads guilty, lawsuit is filed

On November 5, 2009, Darrell Gibson pleaded guilty to misdemeanor battery. He was sentenced to a year of court supervision. He was ordered to undergo anger management counseling and perform five days of community service. The maximum penalty for a Class A Misdemeanor is one year in jail and a $2,500 fine.

Brittney Hernandez filed her lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court on December 3 against Gibson and House of Blues, seeking at least $100,000. Seven counts against Gibson included negligence, assault, battery, theft, and infliction of emotional distress. The ten counts against House of Blues included assault, battery, theft, negligent hiring and training, and statutory ordinance violations such as battery, theft, and failing to report the activity to police.

(Left) This time, local news cameras were photographing Brittney Hernandez – the woman seen in a cell phone video being assaulted by a House of Blues security officer – at a news conference on December 10, 2009. At left is her attorney, Stuart Brody.

Her attorney, Stuart Brody, said the four-minute-15-second video was “critical” to his case.

“The picture speaks a thousand words,” he said. “We see every day incidents, whether it be criminal or otherwise, being captured on video that really level the playing field, so to speak, because it tells the story better than two people having to say, ‘he said, she said.’ This is one of those incidents.”

The lawsuit was important, says Hernandez, not just to her but to other concertgoers. “You want to feel safe when you’re at a venue or whenever you’re seeing a concert. Many parents...just drop [their children] off at the door and pick them up right afterwards. You would think that they’d be safe. They should be at ease knowing that their children are with people who are going to do their job correctly instead of rough them up for no reason.”

During the week of April 19, 2010, a settlement was reached but terms were not disclosed.

“We found the attorneys for House of Blues to be very cooperative,” said Brody about the Chicago law firm Swanson, Martin & Bell, “and we are pleased to have settled the case.”

Changes made to security and local management

2009 was a “horrendous season” for House of Blues Chicago, in the words of 42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly. On May 13, 2010, he met with Ryan Shea, the new general manager. Shea replaced Jim Jablonski, who had been GM since January 2009 and, before that, from 1999 to 2006.

Reilly called the meeting “very productive.” He had commitments from HOB, in writing, to increase security around the perimeter of the property, and manage more aggressively how the public enters and exits. There were 12 new managers, including Shea, and changes to security staff included new people and new training – a rigorous certification program Reilly described as “the best in the business.”

“I was really impressed with what they came up with,” said Reilly (left). They brought in folks that had managed much larger venues like Alpine Valley to head this up. And they acknowledged, they said look, we admit we really blew it. We’re embarrassed as a brand...and that we’re not going to do that anymore.”

Along with Darrell Gibson, House of Blues fired most of its security staff and created a new human resources department to give applicants for security jobs a more rigorous background check.

What Reilly understood about the old hiring practices was that “it was basically word of mouth, like friend-of-a-friend hires. Their head of security was, like, hiring his buddies. A lot of them had a criminal history.”

“They had plenty of bodies,” says Reilly about HOB security, “but they weren’t professional and they weren’t handling it right.”