What a theater can demand of its patrons

When a security guard at the Warren East 20 Theater demanded recently that 14-year-old Alonzo Taylor Jr. pull up his drooping britches, bigger questions loomed than whether he’d miss the coming attractions, the movie or get a refund.

Under what authority do moonlighting police officers working as security guards operate? Is the business telling you to pull up your pants, or is municipal government telling you to pull up your pants?

This issue, among other violations of Alonzo’s rights, led the ACLU of Kansas to address what happened to him with Wichita police and Regal theaters. We need clarity on this issue and it may require new regulations or restrictions on off-duty work for police officers.

Why?

Because while security guards can detain you if they believe you’ve stolen or damaged property, they cannot arrest you. They cannot tell you that you can’t call your parent or guardian. They cannot tell the parent or guardian that unless you sign an “agreement to appear” document, you’re going to jail.

But that’s what Alonzo and his mother, Ruth Dennis, said happened to them.

A police officer working as a contract agent for the theater handcuffed Alonzo and told him he could not call his mother. When Dennis arrived, she said the officer told her that unless she signed a “juvenile notice to appear” document, Alonzo would be jailed. The evening didn’t end well for him.

Do we really want police officers arresting teenagers for dress-code violations or perhaps enforcing discriminatory business practices?

Wichita police chief Gordon Ramsay said no, and that he’d addressed this issue as chief in Duluth, Minn.

Officers picking up extra work on the side as security guards can blur the line between public servant and private contractor, and seed worrisome business entanglements.

These gray areas led Ramsay to establish a policy in Duluth clarifying that police officers worked for and were indemnified by the city and that extra duty would be assigned by the department, not by officers who’d for years dictated who received extra duty.

Ramsay said in a 2009 Duluth Tribune article that the policy also addressed legal liability and workers’ comp concerns and toppled department “barons” who also hoarded prime overtime shifts, like July 4, that paid double or triple overtime.

He said he understood that such a move might upset some of his officers, but he is mulling a similar policy change for WPD. Good for him, and good for us.

If only Ramsay also managed Regal theaters, which so far has chosen not to discuss this issue with the ACLU of Kansas, community organizations or, Ramsay said, Wichita police.

If Regal doesn’t want black teenage customers, it should just say so rather than practicing this kind of racial profiling. Regal also should post its dress code and schedule additional employee training.

The theater should do this soon.

There’s still time to write a better ending for Alonzo’s awful evening at the movies.