advice to muggers: wear tight pants
Wall Street Journal - June 20, 2006
Perpetrator Problem: It’s Hard to Run Away In Falling Trousers
Cops Say Loose, Baggy Jeans Trip Up Many a Thief; ‘Hey, Dude, Buy a Belt’
By SERENA NG
One sunny afternoon in January, Vicki Chandler, a 55-year-old
underwriting associate at Cigna HealthCare in Chattanooga, Tenn., was
walking to her car when a teenager in loose khaki pants approached
her, pointed to her pocketbook and said, “I need that.” As she
recounts the incident, he snatched the purse and took off.
But then he ran into trouble. As he ran, his loose trousers slipped
down below his hips. As he reached down to hold them up, the teen was
forced to throw the purse aside.
“That boy, he could run fast but he got caught up by his pants, which
were real big and baggy,” says Ms. Chandler, whose purse was
retrieved by a parking attendant who had heard her cries for help.
It’s a problem for perpetrators. Young men and teens wearing low-
slung, baggy pants fairly regularly get tripped up in their getaways,
a development that has given amused police officers and law-abiding
citizens a welcome edge in the fight against crime.
James Green might have made a clean getaway when he stole seven DVDs
from a Blockbuster store in Ferndale, Mich., last October. But he,
too, was undone by his baggy pants.
Mr. Green, 30, rode away on a bicycle, with copies of “Donnie
Brasco,” “The Bourne Identity” and “Sin City.” When a patrol car
knocked over the bike, he fled on foot. As he ran, his trousers
slipped down past his hips, and he tripped. He hitched up his pants
and ran a few more yards before falling again.
Things got worse and worse for Mr. Green. He finally kicked off his
pants and shoes and “ran into the yard of 1720 Beaufield,” police
officer Kenneth Jaklic said in a report of the incident. “I ran after
[Mr. Green], yelling at him to stop.” Instead, Mr. Green jumped over
a fence behind a garage, and Mr. Jaklic immobilized him with two
Taser darts in the back.
Mr. Green pleaded guilty to charges of resisting arrest and retail
fraud and spent 30 days in jail. He could not be located for comment.
Denny Fuhrman, a 58-year-old police officer in Lynnwood, Wash., was
escorting a handcuffed suspect to his patrol car one afternoon in
2004 when the youngster twisted free and took off running.
As he bolted, the baggy blue jeans he was wearing fell down around
his ankles, sending him tumbling onto the pavement of a busy street.
“He was rolling around in traffic, looking like a fish out of water,”
recalls Mr. Fuhrman.
Mr. Fuhrman’s suspect wiggled out of his trousers before getting up
from the street and running toward a nearby mall, as the police
officer radioed a description to his colleagues: “White male,
running, no pants, in handcuffs,” Mr. Fuhrman recalls saying. The
young man was arrested at the entrance of a J.C. Penney store after
Janice Lewis, a 61-year-old passerby, grabbed his shirt collar and
held on to him until police arrived.
“He was pretty wild,” says Ms. Lewis, a grandmother of 10 who broke a
knuckle during the scuffle. “I didn’t even realize he was in his
underwear till the police flipped him over.”
Police declined to release the full name of the youth, identified
only as Jason in written reports, because he was not convicted of a
crime in connection with the incident. He had been arrested after
allegedly trying to access a bank account that wasn’t his.
Low-hanging baggy pants have been a fashion statement for young men
for more than a decade, inspired by the advent of beltless prison
jeans, says Andy Gilchrist, a California fashion consultant who has
written a book on men’s clothes. Over time, the tough-guy image
associated with oversized trousers helped make the look standard for
hip-hop performers, alternative music bands, skateboarders and
snowboarders as it migrated from mostly black city streets to
affluent white suburbs.
Just about every other week, Jim Matheny, a 41-year-old police
lieutenant in Stamford, Conn., says he gets into foot chases with
youths. He says it’s getting easier to capture them because they
can’t run fast or far in those loose jeans.
“When I catch them, I tell them they’d do much better if they had
pants that fit,” says Lt. Matheny, who says he has had to help hold
up the pants of his suspects while patting them down to search for
drugs or weapons. “It’s like: ‘Hey dude, buy a belt and save yourself
some trouble.’ “
Ill-fitting pants aren’t suited for jumping, either, as Noah Donell
Brown of Hendersonville, N.C., learned. The 24-year-old tried to leap
over the counter of a Subway sandwich shop during a robbery attempt,
but he stumbled and came crashing down in front of several startled
store employees. Mr. Brown, armed with a gun, got up and fled into a
nearby residential neighborhood as the police were notified.
Police didn’t have to work hard to arrest him. As Mr. Brown tried to
scale a picket fence in someone’s backyard, he caught his pants,
according to the police department. He was found dangling upside
down, his pants at his ankles and tangled in the fence.
“He didn’t make a good jump,” said Hendersonville Police Chief Donnie
Parks, who spotted Mr. Brown on the fence. “The only reason we caught
the guy was because his pants fell down,” he said, adding: “He was
wearing underwear, thank goodness.”
Hendersonville police used a knife to cut Mr. Brown free. He is
currently serving time in prison after pleading guilty to attempted
robbery with a dangerous weapon. His lawyer, Greg Newman, who has
since become the mayor of Hendersonville, said he had not spoken to
Mr. Brown since 2003. Mr. Brown, serving his sentence at Gaston
Correctional Center in Dallas, N.C., could not be contacted for comment.
Dwight Oliver showed up for a court hearing in Seminole County, Fla.,
wearing loose pants and tennis shoes without laces. While waiting for
his case to be called, Mr. Oliver tried to flee. He lost his pants as
he ran down the steps of the courthouse.
He was later found in gray boxer shorts in a library three blocks
from the courthouse and was arrested after a scuffle with police
officers. It turned out the charges he was scheduled to face in court
that day were dropped. He was slapped with new charges of resisting
arrest and sentenced to two and a half years in jail for the
incident. He served 17 months and was released in April.
“Those pants certainly didn’t help him escape, and if he had just sat
and waited, he would have been fine,” said F. Wesley “Buck” Blankner
Jr., who was Mr. Oliver’s lawyer. Mr. Oliver didn’t return calls
seeking comment. His mother, Alice Oliver, said: “He wears pants like
that, but he usually wears a belt.”
Karl Franklin tried to run from police in Tallahassee, Fla., in pants
that were on fire. According to a police report, the 30-year-old had
stashed a lighted cigarette in his baggy pants and appeared to be
preparing to urinate at a traffic intersection.
Seth Stoughton, a police officer at the time, approached Mr. Franklin
and noticed the man’s pocket was smoldering. Mr. Franklin, who could
not be reached, started to run, but his pants dropped and tripped him
up.
“I tried to slap the fire out, but he was struggling and kicking me,
so I couldn’t do much but hold him down,” recalls Mr. Stoughton, who
now works as a fraud investigator. When other officers arrived, they
cut off the burning patch of cloth and arrested Mr. Franklin. He was
charged with resisting arrest, but he later pleaded guilty to lesser
charges and spent 10 days in jail.