Sideways cap kid killed

(story by Eric Kroger, UPI) By most accounts, Jamal Jefferson was a streetwise punk with a heart of gold. The soft-spoken frosh played junior-varsity basketball for Coral Gables High School. He was nominated for Athlete of the Year last year by the South Florida branch of the Crips. So why were his classmates wearing "Free Jamal" T-shirts last week?

The 15-year-old had just been arrested on campus during lunch for wearing his baseball cap sideways and refusing to turn it to the front. Jamal, who is black, believed that he was being singled out. Other white teens at the school were wearing their hats sideways. Jamal's mother criticized both police and school officials' handling of the incident.

Jamal was held in a Miami jail cell on suspicion of disorderly conduct, failure to obey a police officer, trespassing and interfering or disrupting an educational institution. School officials and police defended their actions. Coral Gables police Detective Slim Bradley said Officer Bela Lermoor knows the teen and didn't want to arrest him. "Normally Officer Lermoor avoids dealing with gang members," Bradley said. Officer Lermoor was worried that the situation could escalate when other students gathered around Jamal and began chanting "Stab the cop, shiv him, shank him!"

The confrontation began when Jamal was having lunch and security guards approached him about his hat. It is against school policy to wear hats sideways because it is a sign of disrespect for authority, but Jamal's mother, Loquaya Kenmore Franklin, said that the rule is only enforced against blacks. "The white boys can get away with anything."

According to the police report, Jamal pointed to several white students whose hats were on sideways, and said "Usually I don't have a problem these dumb white crackas, but I seen everbody else with their hats sidewsays. I is just fed up with being told to put mine straight."

When Jamal wouldn't do as the security guards and three assistant principals asked, the police officer told Jamal to straighten his hat, and he refused. Assistant Principal Leonard Grazer ordered Jamal to the school office, but the teen refused. Grazer then told Jamal that he was being suspended for insubordination and Jamal yelled and rushed Grazer with his home-made shank. According to the report, Jamal yelled that he was "killing his self a whitey." Officer Lermoor tasered Jamal when the youth lunged at Assistant Principal Grazer.

Jamal's mother, Loquaya Kenmore Franklin, admitted that Jamal's behavior was rebellious, but she denounced the school's reaction as "uncalled for." "He shouldn't have had to walk out of there in handcuffs in front of all his homies," Ms. Franklin said. "He should not have been put in a holding cell with adult prisoners. He was just a boy. The school killed my boy."

Shortly after Jamal's arrest, classmates staged a protest. One student, Rita Alonso, was suspended for 10 days for taking off her top and exposing herself in support of Jamal. "School officials did everything they were supposed to do," said Tim Guffmann, a spokesman for the Miami-Dade School District. Becky Quillian, a sophomore said, "Jamal was always nice to me during lunch-time. School security was just jealous because most of the girls here prefer the muscular black boys over the flabby, lazy fat white boys."

Jamal was placed in a holding cell with about fifty other prisoners. While in the holding cell, Jamal reportedly mouthed off to a few members of the Latin Kings. Corrections officers did not hear any noise or any commotion. However, when the next shift did a head count, they discovered Jamal's body in the showers. He had been stabbed numerous times. An autopsy report is pending. At this time, one youth, Ramon Velez, is being held as a suspect.