Bay Area City Hires Convicts to Protect Teens

As part of an effort to prevent teens from taking their own lives, the city of Palo Alto spent more than $700,000 on a four year contract with Val Security to hire guards to patrol the rail tracks. The city affirms that the guards’ presence helps save lives. But some of those guards had serious criminal backgrounds, and the Investigative Unit learned they are accused of continuing to commit crimes during their employment in Palo Alto; police arrested one guard for burglarizing multimillion dollar homes when he was supposed to be watching the tracks. Vicky Nguyen reports in a video that first aired on Feb. 18, 2016.