Admit it. Just maybe all this obsessing about Iowa and who will win the caucus is way past its sell by date. So let me pass along a little personal discovery I made today courtesy of the field negro wherein I learned that wearing saggy pants can get you and the family you came in with arrested, especially if you are not of the officially approved white version of American citizen:
The scene that preceded the arrival of more than 20 sheriff’s deputies and a helicopter at The Mall at Wellington Green to arrest a family of six last week was a chaotic concoction of pushing, screaming, scratching, kicking and cursing that nearly resulted in multiple Taserings, according to law enforcement records.
All of this after one youth came to the mall Thursday despite being banned for wearing sagging pants. […]
According to the reports, deputies arrested Frantz Leger, 20, a Florida State University sophomore majoring in business, without a disturbance after a security guard recognized him in the mall’s food court around 7 p.m. and notified deputies.
But authorities insist that his relatives arrived later in the parking lot outside the food court and attempted to stop his arrest. The Leger family says it was the deputies who were the aggressors.
Frantz Leger’s mother, Marthe Leger, 50, pushed two deputies to block them from arresting and using a stun gun on a nephew who had allegedly assaulted a deputy during the fracas, according to an arrest report. She also is accused of kicking and attempting to pull away from a deputy during her arrest.
Her husband, Joseph, 52, threatened to kill deputies and later began to scratch and kick during his arrest, records show.
Frantz Leger’s sister, Samantha Leger, 18, a Florida A&M University accounting major, reportedly screamed and cursed at a congregating crowd and attempted to push past an officer. The three refused to leave the mall’s parking lot after warnings, the deputies’ reports said. […]
The Leger family’s version differs. First, they say, Frantz Leger was approached in the mall’s parking lot while he was in a car already leaving the area. The family said it only asked questions about his arrest, and deputies responded by threatening family members.
“I told them this is racist,” said Marthe Leger, who, along with her family, is Haitian. “That is why they really got mad.”
They say an officer yelled for deputies to arrest them just as they were entering a second car to leave the mall.
Marthe Leger said she was punched multiple times in the face by a deputy as she was trying to photograph the melee with her cellphone. She had a visible bruise on her left cheek Saturday. Joseph Leger said he was punched in the back of the head.
The Leger family was confused how all of this trouble could come from a pair of droopy jeans. […]
In places like Louisiana and New Jersey, local officials have not been shy about barring and criminalizing sagging pants. Opelousas, La., declared it a misdemeanor to wear pants too low. Violators face a $500 fine and jail time.
Riviera Beach Mayor Thomas Masters is collecting signatures to ban the practice there.
A day after news broke of Thursday’s fracas, though, not all jeans were firmly affixed to their owners’ waists at the Wellington mall. And while an exposed tush may be taboo for the mall, a revealing bustline is not.
It’s unfair, some patrons said.
“It’s probably OK for girls because it’s seductive,” said Maria Moncelli, 19, a Wellington resident. “No cop is going to complain about that because they’re men. That’s sad.”
It was mall security, according to official accounts, that raised the dress code inquiries about Frantz Leger. But the mall’s own “Rules of Common Courtesy,” which he reportedly violated, are vague, leaving room for enforcement to be possibly arbitrary and capricious when it comes to dress code violations.
The only references the rules make to dress code is that shirts and shoes are required and that there is a ban on clothing with vulgar, obscene or sexually explicit language. There also is an exclusion of “disorderly or disruptive conduct of any nature,” specifically obscene language or hand gestures and running in the mall.
Most shoppers Monday, however, said they were unaware of the dress code. Placed near mall entrances in 81/2-by-11-inch picture frames, the rules are barely visible a few feet away.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen some fat white guy’s “cheeks” peeking out from his pants in public, in particular at Walmart or the local mall, but I’ve yet to hear of anyone of the caucasion persuasion being arrested for showing way too much of their pale posterior region because their hip huggers were riding too low. Maybe it’s happened before. Hell, maybe even 20 deputies and a police helicopter were required to arrest such dangerous saggy pants wearing white people.
But I doubt it.
Still nice to know our public officials and law enforcement have their priorities in order. Because there is nothing more terrifying to regular decent Americans than a brown person wearing saggy pants.
