Fix you hat Douche! Or your outa' here! PUNK ASS KID!

Security guards on Monday enter the main entrance of Tyrone Square Mall, where 10 rules are posted, including one that bars clothes "commonly recognized as gang-related."

By ROSALIND HELDERMAN

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 18, 2000


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ST. PETERSBURG -- Ephraim Sykes has gone to Tyrone Square Mall many times in a tuxedo to sing and dance for mall patrons with a school group.


Ephraim Sykes
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On Saturday, two days before his 15th birthday, Ephraim went in casual clothes and a baseball cap, and his family says mall security kicked him out -- for wearing his hat sideways.

His father, the Rev. Manuel Sykes of the Bethel Community Baptist Church, says the action was racially motivated.

"He's sung and danced in that mall, but he comes in without a tuxedo and a funny hat, and he gets treated like this. It's time for something to change," Sykes said.

Tyrone Square Mall's manager said Ephraim's cap had violated a posted mall regulation and that there was no racial discrimination.

On the advice of his attorney, Sykes decided Ephraim should not speak with the media but gave the following version of Saturday's events on Ephraim's behalf:

The younger Sykes was shopping with friends Saturday evening when a mall security guard approached him and told him to straighten his white, baseball-style cap, with the word "pimp" on it, which he had been wearing sideways.

Ephraim said he did so, but the security guard followed him and said that he could still see the cap slightly angled.

Sykes said what was on the cap shouldn't matter.

"The security guard didn't say that the language on the hat was the reason," Sykes said. "He said it was the way it was turned."

Sykes said mall security then asked Ephraim to leave and followed him in the parking lot to make sure he left mall property and walked along the street.

Sykes found Ephraim walking along 22nd Avenue N, and the two re-entered the mall.

Sykes says it was what he saw then that led him to believe the incident was racially motivated. He says there were many youngsters, most of them white, congregating in the food court area with sideways-turned baseball caps.

Some of them were walking in front of the security guards. None of them were asked to straighten their hats or leave the mall.

"They didn't stop one kid, especially not the white kids," Sykes said.

Sykes said he took pictures of others in the mall wearing their hats the way his son had worn his. Sykes said he would bring the pictures to a news conference he plans to hold today in front of the mall. After confronting mall security officers about the incident, Sykes was asked to leave the mall.

He said he was escorted from the mall by an off-duty, uniformed police officer working security at the mall, who told him that on private property mall security can ask anyone to leave for any reason.

Sykes says he will sue the mall and encourage community members to boycott it.

"I'm ready to deal with this in any way possible to make Tyrone Mall know that African-Americans are sick and tired of being followed and harassed at a mall they spend millions of dollars at," Sykes said.

Mall manager Scott Rolston offers an account similar to Sykes', but differing in one way. Rolston says Ephraim initially straightened his hat, but was found by the security guard an hour later with the cap turned once again.

"We have zero tolerance for discrimination of any kind. We're committed to providing a safe, quality shopping experience for all of our shoppers," Rolston said.

He said Ephraim was asked to leave the mall because he had violated rule nine of a list of regulations posted at each mall entrance that prohibits clothing "commonly recognized as gang-related."

Rolston said mall patrons who are asked to leave for violating the mall's code of conduct are banned from the mall only for that day. He also said a white youngster with his cap sideways would be asked to leave as quickly as a black youngster.

"If there are kids with their hats turned aside, I promise they are being asked to change it," he said.

As for Sykes' pictures of white youths with sideways-turned hats?

"I'd love to look at them," Rolston said. "My understanding is that certain colored hats turned in a certain way indicates gang activity. Asking a patron to turn his hat is, in our opinion, enforcing our code of conduct."

The Tyrone Square Mall dress code has been in effect since 1997 and is one of a handful of similar policies in the area. University Mall in Tampa has a similar dress code.

Sgt. Dennis Simmons of the St. Petersburg Police Department's Gang Unit, which helped train the private security guards at Tyrone Square Mall, says clothing alone cannot indicate gang members.

"You've got a lot of kids who wear clothes like that. That's just kids," he said.

Simmons said a sideways-turned hat can be a gang sign, but most often only when paired with gang colors. A red hat and shirt can be a sign of the Bloods gang, a blue hat a sign for the Crips. Simmons said a white hat turned sideways like Ephraim's could indicate gang activity, but rarely does.

"If they're wearing a white hat or a black hat, it may just be a fad," he said. "Normally, if it was us, we would not kick them out."

Tyrone Square Mall had some problems with gang fights several years ago, but police have not noticed much activity there recently, Simmons said.

"You should be able to wear a hat any way you want," said Josh Lockart, 18, a visitor to the mall Monday who was wearing one pant leg rolled up -- sometimes considered a gang sign.

Others felt mall security was correct.

"When any person does that, white or black, it's a sign of being in a gang," said Josh Edwards, 14.

Rolston said he hopes to resolve the situation quickly. He plans to call Sykes today to discuss the incident and avert the news conference at the mall.