A San Mateo County protester who showed up outside Paris Hilton’s March 22, 2023 book signing at The Grove says a security guard battered him, falsely arrested him and hauled him into a basement holding area. Now he has filed an amended lawsuit that comes with color photos and body-worn camera clips to back up his story.
According to court papers, plaintiff Peter Lecki was protesting with signs and a wheeled loudspeaker that played recordings of animals being skinned alive near Gilmore Way and First Street, about a block from the Barnes & Noble where Hilton was signing books. The amended complaint, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, claims a security guard stepped directly in front of Lecki, pushed him, then “grabbed and manhandled” him before escorting him to a detention area in the mall’s basement. Lecki is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
The updated filing names Caruso Management Co. Ltd., A.F. Gilmore Co., GFM LLC, Critical Solutions-Protective Services LLC and a Critical Solutions security guard as defendants. It alleges the guard later told responding officers that he had detained Lecki for battery, and that this statement persuaded police to arrest the protester. The suit also says the guard never warned Lecki to stop using amplified sound or to move along before ordering him to leave, a detail reported by MyNewsLA.
Legal backdrop: citizen's arrests and malls
Lecki’s claims land in the tricky space where private security work brushes up against constitutional rights.
Under California law, private individuals can make what is commonly called a citizen’s arrest only in narrow situations. Penal Code Section 837 allows this if a public offense is committed in that person’s presence or if there is reasonable cause to believe a felony has been committed. If that authority is stretched too far, the person doing the detaining can face criminal exposure or civil liability.
Where someone is standing also matters a lot. The U.S. Supreme Court’s PruneYard decision gave states room to protect some free speech on privately owned shopping centers. Later California cases, though, have drawn a line between open common areas that invite lingering and tighter spaces like sidewalks or aprons directly in front of store entrances. Whether Lecki’s particular protest spot counts as a protected public forum will be a key factual fight.
What the complaint alleges and the defense
In his amended complaint, Lecki says his body-worn camera footage shows he was the one who suffered a battery, not the other way around, and that still photos from mall security cameras back him up. The new filing formally adds those images and a close-up of the guard’s identifying patch into the court record.
The defendants are pushing back. Their lawyers argue in court papers that the exact patch of ground where Lecki chose to protest is not a public forum, so the property owners and their security staff had the right to move him along under state property and trespass rules. If that view prevails, they say, the guard’s actions were lawful. MyNewsLA reports that the original lawsuit was filed in March 2025 and that the June amendment is what adds the color photos.
What could happen next
Cases like this often come down to a few tightly focused questions. Did the guard have legal grounds to detain Lecki at all. Was any force used reasonable under the circumstances. And was that stretch of The Grove effectively a protected forum under California law or just private property where speech rules are much narrower.
If a judge or jury finds the detention went beyond what California’s limited citizen’s arrest statute allows, the guard and his employer could face civil liability for false arrest or battery. If the location is found not to be a protected forum, property owners and their security teams may have broader leeway to eject demonstrators.
For now, the case remains pending in Los Angeles Superior Court, where early battles are likely to focus on the forum question and on whether the security guard’s decision to detain Lecki will hold up under state law.
