BATON ROUGE, Louisiana: A town in the US state of has banned the wearing of sagging trousers, an offence that may now lead to a $600 fine.
Timmonsville town passed the order recently. A first offence leads to a verbal warning, a second to a written warning and a third to a fine of $100-600. Similar orders were previously made in towns in Florida and Louisiana.
One council official said the ban would lead to racial profiling.
Meanwhile, hundreds of mourners, friends and family members of Alton Sterling, 37, gathered in Baton Rouge for a second night of protest, prayer and remembrance.
Sterling was shot early Tuesday as he wrestled with two white police officers outside the convenience store where he sold music and movies on compact discs. Police say he was armed.
Cellphone video of the shooting posted online by a community activist set off angry protests, coming at a time when law enforcement officers across the country are under close scrutiny over what some see as indiscriminate use of deadly force against blacks.
In the latest death, a Minnesota officer shot a black man in a car with a woman and a child. Authorities are looking into whether the aftermath of the killing was livestreamed in a widely shared Facebook video.
Moving quickly to keep tensions from boiling over in Louisiana, Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards asked the US Justice Department on Wednesday to lead a civil rights investigation into the killing.
“I have very serious concerns. The video is disturbing, to say the least,” the governor said at a news conference.
Sandra Augustus, an aunt who helped raise Sterling after his mother died, spoke to the crowds Wednesday night with a tearful, broken voice.
She said a second video that emerged showing the moments before her nephew was shot left her angry.
South Carolina’s ban on sagging trousers leads to ‘race profile’ fears
South Carolina’s ban on sagging trousers leads to ‘race profile’ fears
