Exclusive Look Into Adult Security Guards at Teen L.A. Parties

From around 2017 to 2018, a group of high school students in Calabasas and L.A. started hosting parties promoted through Instagram. The concept of these Instagram parties was simple. An account was created, and additional details—like how much the party would cost, and if drinks would be provided—were given in the bio. These parties quickly grew in size and popularity. Over time they became a money-making scheme for party-promoter teenagers, almost all of whom were male. There is often little cost, because alcohol is not often provided, and a lot of potential profit since tickets to these parties can cost upwards of 20 dollars. Often, hosts are able to walk away with over a grand at the end of the night. The only expenses usually are damages, an Airbnb rental, and a professional adult security guard. Desi Perez is one of those security guards.

Perez has done almost every type of security work. He’s worked at parties, concerts, strip clubs, liquor stores, and marijuana shops. Perez says he tried to get out of that work after a shootout at a marijuana dispensary in 2014. Though no one was shot, the experience left Perez shaken. “Guards kept getting killed working at marijuana dispensaries. I was constantly seeing that on the news… I'm risking my life every day for this.” Perez says that working at strip clubs was also dangerous. “After a while, it gets boring because I'm seeing them naked all the damn time… They [the strippers] also fight each other because of money being stolen, or they stole their tricks…so I got out of there.” He’s also been shot by Mexican gang members. He claims that was because was targeted as Black man. But that was during his free time.

In 2017, one of Perez’s friends offered him a job doing security for a high-end party. Only later did he find out that it was for Harvard Westlake Upper School. “I wanted to make a great impression, so I got all tacticaled out… I had the [bulletproof] vest, the boots, I even brought my gun.” Perez explains that he made an effort to be personable: “I know how to talk to people, and I know how not to lose my cool.” After that, a teen reached out and asked if he would do security at one of his parties. From there, he just kept getting work. He usually does four to five teen parties a month. 

Perez says that working at high school parties is his favorite type of security. “Sometimes it's not even work; it's just watching kids have fun. It's kind of like a glorified babysitter.” Another benefit is that the risk of injury is much lower compared to other security jobs.

However, there are downsides to working high school parties. One of the worst parts is walking in on teens in compromising positions. “I remember seeing this kid just with his Johnson all the way out, and he was like, ‘Hey yo, what's up, Dez?’ And I'm like, ‘Bro, put your s*** away… You're a 17-year-old kid, bro.’” Other than that, Perez only has to deal with obnoxious kids occasionally, though he still remembers one particularly bad incident from a few years ago.

Perez was doing security for a private high school party when a kid walked off a party bus that his friends had rented for the night. He had a bottle of vodka in his hand, and announced, “My dad's a diplomat.” Within ten minutes, Perez had received several complaints about this kid trying to fight people at the party and splashing alcohol on them while yelling “My dad's a diplomat!” Perez asked him to leave. When he refused, Perez picked him up and put him in the party bus. The situation quickly escalated. “A bunch of kids started crowding the party bus. They're busting the windows and they're rocking the bus,” says Perez. He held back as many kids as he could from destroying the bus, which made it out just in time, though with broken windows and a popped tire. This is one of the few times that Perez saw entitled teens disgusted by another teen’s extreme entitlement. 

A lot of the work Perez has been getting is in Malibu, which presents a new risk: drunk teen drivers. Every year, around five teen DUI crashes happen in Malibu, and about 350 teen DUI crashes happen in L.A. County. Perez worries about kids getting in fatal accidents under the influence, especially since he has children of his own who drive, so he tries to limit the number of accidents by taking anyone's car keys who appears visibly intoxicated.  “Kids in that area drive more… and the kids over there don't want to give up their keys,” says Perez. On one occasion, an argument over whether a teen should be allowed to drive became so heated that Perez had a bottle thrown at him. Luckily, it missed. “I haven't had no deaths under my clock, and I intend to keep it that way.” Perez argues that if there were an accident, he would not be responsible. “Technically, it's not our fault if someone comes in with a gun or… they stab someone,” he explained, seemingly forgetting that was the whole job. 

Perez isn't legally worried about being around underage drinking, since he could claim plausible deniability. “I'm not throwing these parties. I'm not supplying none of this…and I don't give a damn what you're doing as long as I get paid,” he says. This attitude can permit excessive drinking and other dangerous behavior. However, he's still beloved, since he shares this attitude with many of the teen and parent hosts of the parties. 

High school parties are the least sketchy of the events he works, which range from “illuminati to masquerades to banker parties to political parties to skinhead rallies,” he says. The “illuminati” and “devil worshiper” parties were the most frightening of all. “It's like these people walk in and just come out different,” he says. At a devil-worshiping party, Perez says that he saw a girl walk in “and she comes out with blood all over her face.” 

Perez wants to commit more of his time to high school parties, but he also admits that the variety of his work is what makes his life enjoyable. “I love my life… I'm partying with the rich kids one minute. I'm over here at a concert the next. I'm over here at a football game the next. Then, one minute, I'm just having fun with a bunch of strippers.”

Teenagers hiring adults to do security for their mansion parties should be something limited to a plot in The OC or Beverly Hills 91210. But the commodification of the L.A. teen party scene has created an odd power dynamic where rich teenage party hosts hold power over grown security officers. But for Perez it's still an easy paycheck.