Flint police chief: No backing down from crackdown on saggy pants
By BEN SCHMITT FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER July 20, 2008
Flints police chief isnt backing down from his crackdown on saggy pants.
The ACLU last week said Monday would be the deadline for Chief David Dicks to halt the stopping and searching of individuals with low-riding pants, exposing underwear or bare bottoms.
Legal action may be forthcoming because Dicks said he isnt changing anything.
“Im going to keep on doing what Im doing,” Dicks told the Free Press today. “I guess Im expecting a lawsuit, but they gotta have a plaintiff.”
Dicks pointed out that he has only issued warnings only since implementing the policy on June 27.
“I dont see how a warning is a civil rights violation,” he said. Dicks said wearing pants below the waist is a crime – a violation of the citys disorderly conduct ordinance – and can give police probable cause to search saggers for other crimes, such as weapon or drug possession.
He said exposing the buttocks is indecent exposure. Both crimes are misdemeanors punishable by 93 days to a year in jail and/or fines up to $500, Dicks said.
The ACLU is particularly troubled by the searches of saggers.
"Your new practice of stopping and threatening young men with disorderly conduct for wearing ‘saggy pants’ is a blatant violation of the United States Constitution,the ACLU wrote to Dicks in a letter last week. "Although you were recently appointed Chief of the Flint Police Department, you cannot appoint yourself chief of the ‘fashion police.’
“You have no power to criminalize a style of dress because you find it distasteful. We ask that you halt this practice immediately.”
Trying to draw a line between conduct and protected speech is tough and sloppy - and the current jurisprudence reflects that - but it has to be done, because otherwise, the First Amendment would invalidate nearly every local ordinance on the books.
My purely personal political opinion is that the wearing of baggy pants isn’t and shouldn’t be protected speech - it’s the equivalent of going nude in public. So long as there is a rational public purpose to the law - and that could be a good debate, but I think there is - I have no problem with it and I don’t think it is a speech issue.
Again, my political opinion, not a prediction of how a local court would rule in light of the awful miasma of the law in this area.
Those damn whipper snappers and that devil gangster rap music back in my day if your pants weren’t above your shoulders you got 80 lashings, then for two shillings I could get a cream soda, ride a trolley a see a picture…
please this law is ridiculous, if your going to ban saggy jeans, what about low cut halter tops and mini skirts? this is just a case of people complaining for the sake of complaining. How about instead of debating stupid ideas like this they actually make progress by finding ways to fund the education and health systems?
those damn whipper snappers and that devil gangster rap music back in my day if your pants weren’t above your shoulders you got 80 lashings, then for two shillings I could get a cream soda, ride a trolley a see a picture…
please this law is ridiculous, if your going to ban saggy jeans, what about low cut halter tops and mini skirts? this is just a case of people complaining for the sake of complaining. How about instead of debating stupid ideas like this they actually make progress by finding ways to fund the education and health systems?
What is wrong with this country. Have the police forgotten that they also need to protect us from the zoot suits? If they don’t act soon the zoot suiters will be everywhere and our kids will start smoking marijuana.
Thses damn civil righters don’t they understand that unlike fashion civil rights aren’t permanent. If this keeps up our daughters will soon be wearing makeup just like scarlett women.
The problem isn’t banning of baggy pants…it’s what they will want to ban next.
Once the government can dicate what you can wear who’s to say what else they will want to regulate for the percieved public good. They already regulate far too much.
[quote]pat wrote:
I hate it when cocksuckers make me side with the ACLU…I don’t give a fuck if people walk around naked, they should be allow to do it.[/quote]
I agree with you, but that does not back up the ACLU’s claim that the ordinance is unconstitutional.
[quote]Sifu wrote:
What is wrong with this country. Have the police forgotten that they also need to protect us from the zoot suits? If they don’t act soon the zoot suiters will be everywhere and our kids will start smoking marijuana.
Thses damn civil righters don’t they understand that unlike fashion civil rights aren’t permanent. If this keeps up our daughters will soon be wearing makeup just like scarlett women.[/quote]
While the laws which made Zoot suits “illegal” (WWII rationing of wool material) were race neutral, it’s no coincidence that sentiment against Zoot suiters had its roots in racial discrimination.
[quote]Loose Tool wrote:
Sifu wrote:
What is wrong with this country. Have the police forgotten that they also need to protect us from the zoot suits? If they don’t act soon the zoot suiters will be everywhere and our kids will start smoking marijuana.
Thses damn civil righters don’t they understand that unlike fashion civil rights aren’t permanent. If this keeps up our daughters will soon be wearing makeup just like scarlett women.
While the laws which made Zoot suits “illegal” (WWII rationing of wool material) were race neutral, it’s no coincidence that sentiment against Zoot suiters had its roots in racial discrimination.
[quote]pat wrote:
I hate it when cocksuckers make me side with the ACLU…I don’t give a fuck if people walk around naked, they should be allow to do it.[/quote]