PALO ALTO — Three guards from a security firm the city hired to watch a stretch of Caltrain tracks after a cluster of teen suicides have been accused of committing crimes, according to an NBC Bay Area investigation.

The guards were arrested while employed by Val Security through the city’s Track Watch effort, NBC reported Thursday.

One of the guards was identified as James Chester Broughton, a transient who police arrested in October on suspicion of committing three residential burglaries near the railway.

Broughton ransacked and stole from homes on the 1400 block of Emerson Street, 500 block of Miramonte Avenue and 1600 block of Castilleja Avenue, Palo Alto police said in an October news release. He entered the homes through either unlocked doors or windows, police said.

Broughton was recently released from San Quentin State Prison for armed robbery and is under investigation by Palo Alto police for identity theft using credit cards, NBC said, citing criminal records.

NBC also reported that police arrested Kenneth White near his post along the Caltrain tracks for a bench warrant involving petty theft from Fry’s in San Jose. Another guard, Brett Scott, faces drug possession charges in Palo Alto.

The Daily News could not reach Palo Alto police or Val Security to independently confirm whether Broughton, White and Scott worked as guards.

Under its contract with the city, Val Security assigned guards along the tracks to serve as a deterrent and try to detect potential suicide attempts.

Palo Alto spokeswoman Claudia Keith said the city started the process of finding a new security guard company last spring and when Broughton’s case came to light in late October it was already close to hiring a new company.

“We terminated the contract a month early with Val to bring Cypress on,” Keith said by phone on Friday. “We needed to have a continuation of security. Once the police department became aware, they arrested the individual and notified Val.”

Val terminated Broughton immediately, Keith said.

Keith said the city was looking for a company that could provide guards at four crossings while Caltrain is in operation, nearly 24 hours a day. Val Security guards watched the tracks at the Charleston Road and Meadow Drive crossings seven hours a day from November 2009 to October 2014, between 6:15 p.m. and 1:15 a.m.

In the most recent suicide cluster, four teens died on the tracks between October 2014 and March 2015. The city decided to expand the hours and locations after teens started dying on the tracks.

In November 2014, guard service was added to the Churchill Avenue crossing and the next month to the California Avenue station crossing. By then, guards were watching the tracks from 4:30 to 2:30 a.m.

The city also had “some problems with lack of professionalism” related to Val Security’s guards, Keith said.

“We were already concerned about performance prior to when these criminal behaviors started…,” Keith said. “Some of it was the guards were talking on their phone or not paying attention. There were some things about consistency and reporting…”

Minka van der Zwaag, of Palo Alto’s Office of Human Services, said city officials were concerned about guards talking on their phones during their shifts and not wearing security vests, among other issues she witnessed herself or received reports about from the public.

“There was not the level of concern that someone was not doing their job or watching out on the track,” van der Zwaag said.

The Palo Alto City Council in November 2015 approved a seven-month, $439,442 contract with Cypress Security LLC to provide Track Watch security guard services along the Caltrain corridor from Dec. 1 to June 30.

The city’s four-year contract with Val Security for guards, starting in January 2011, was $773,000.

As with all contractors, the city relies on the company to do all background checks and screening, Keith said.

Cypress employees are required to have “guard cards,” which means they’ve undergone a Live Scan fingerprinting and criminal background checks through the FBI and Department of Justice.

Most felonies and some misdemeanors bar a person from obtaining a state guard registration.

When the city requested proposals for contract security services in July 2015, it received three responses; Val Security did not submit a bid, according to city staff.

Parent volunteers watched the tracks for a period after a 2009 teen suicide cluster before the city hired Val Security.

Email Jacqueline Lee at jlee1@dailynewsgroup.com or call her at 650-391-1334; follow her at twitter.com/jleenews.