Three teenage girls in Oregon were accused of loitering by a mall security guard after they were turned away from rated-R movie and checked their phones to come up with an alternate plan for their evening.
Christine Bynum and two friends had gone to see a movie Friday at the Clackamas Town Center but were unable to get in after one of the girls forgot to bring her ID, so they went outside and sat in their car eating candy and looking at homecoming dresses on their phones before deciding what to do next, reported the Washington Post.
“We were sitting in the car for no more than 20 minutes, when a very authoritative mall cop circled around the car,” the 17-year-old said.
The security guard told the girls, all of whom are black, the mall had strict policies against loitering -- which they didn't understand.
“We didn’t even know what the word meant,” Christine said.
The guard told them to leave, and the girls drove to a nearby park to look up the word loitering.
“We were confused and didn’t feel that sitting in the car laughing and eating candy qualified as ‘strictly prohibited’ activity,” Christine told the newspaper.
The teen said they saw other people sitting in their cars in the mall parking lot, and she believes the guard singled out the girls because they are black.
“She believes she was racially profiled by a mall cop,” said her mother, state Rep. Janelle Bynum (D-Clackamas).
The state legislator made news last year after a woman called the police on her as she canvassed a neighborhood seeking votes for re-election.
“I still have flashbacks to the campaigning event,” Bynum told the Post. “Behind my smile was a sense of just having to muscle through the pain so I could keep talking to neighbors that day. But the truth is, it is deeply insulting and emotionally draining to be accused of being a common criminal when I’ve been a public servant, business owner, and am well-educated.”
The lawmaker encouraged her social media followers to protest her daughter's treatment by showing up at the mall for a "loiter-in" to wait in the food court, sit on benches and check their phones in the parking lot.
“Go see how long it takes to be asked to leave the mall by mall security,” Bynum wrote. “Let’s figure out if there’s a difference between loitering or being the wrong color.”
