Redondo Beach Schools Ban Gang-Related Clothing

Concerned that Redondo Beach children are trying to copy the gang regalia of the inner city, Redondo Beach City school trustees have expanded the district’s dress code to outlaw the wearing of gang colors on elementary and middle school campuses.

In a decision that will take effect when school starts next week, the board voted unanimously Tuesday to “prohibit the presence of any apparel, jewelry, accessory, notebook or manner of grooming which, by virtue of its color, arrangement, brand name and logo or any other attribute, denotes membership in gangs.”

Assistant Supt. Shirley Rogers said that policy is a preventive one, designed to discourage gang activity in the suburban district before it gets out of hand. A similar policy was put into effect last year in the South Bay Union High School District, Supt. Walter Hale said.

Rogers said school officials were alerted to the potential for trouble in lower grades last year after teachers in a middle school noticed a small cadre of Anglo and Latino children who showed up for school day after day in the black-and-silver L.A. Raiders caps and T-shirts popular with inner-city black street gangs.

Although there were no fistfights or confrontations, she said, the six to eight children intimidated other children and disobeyed school rules.

“They would go around as a group, marching in and out of classes at will, and the teachers and other kids were concerned,” Rogers said. “We talked to the Police Department, and they recognized these kids as gang wanna-bes from the larger community. That prompted us to put a stop to it, to nip it in the bud.”

Board member Rebecca Sargent said a copy of the new dress code will be sent home to parents, and that any children who show up in T-shirts bearing gang insignia will be forced to wear the shirt inside-out or have it confiscated. Also prohibited will be the red and blue shoelaces associated with Bloods and Crips, respectively, and the pompadour-style hairdos often worn by female members of Latino gangs, Rogers said.

“If your child wears a normal, ordinary wardrobe, you child won’t have a problem,” Sargent said. “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle sweat shirts won’t be a problem. But if you buy your child a pair of Nikes, and he changes the white laces to red or blue or black-and-silver, your child will probably be walking around the school without shoelaces.”

Sargent said the children “are pretty much just copycats at this point, trying to act tough.”

“But we’re talking safety here,” she said. “We’re talking children’s lives.”