{"id":9230,"date":"2011-08-18T15:36:09","date_gmt":"2011-08-18T19:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=9230"},"modified":"2011-08-18T15:10:36","modified_gmt":"2011-08-18T19:10:36","slug":"man-wearing-african-attire-told-to-leave-courtroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=9230","title":{"rendered":"Man Wearing African Attire Told To Leave Courtroom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>BY LEON B. CREWS<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong> Sentinel Staff Writer<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Since he was 14 years old, <strong>Sanford Harper, II<\/strong>, has been a practicing Muslim. He often dresses in Muslim gowns when he\u2019s out in public and he\u2019s never gotten a complaint from anyone.<\/p>\n<p>Last Wednesday, <strong>Harper<\/strong> was in traffic court to dispute a citation for not wearing a seatbelt.<\/p>\n<p>However, before he could take a seat in the courtroom, he said he was approached by a bailiff who told him he had to leave. \u201cI asked him why did I have to leave, and he told me because of the way I was dressed. I couldn\u2019t believe what I was hearing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Harper<\/strong> said what made it even more confusing was when a second bailiff approached him and told him he was dressed alright. \u201cBut, that didn\u2019t matter, because the first bailiff who told me to leave stuck by his guns and told me I couldn\u2019t sit in the courtroom dressed in an African gown.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Harper<\/strong> said since the incident, he\u2019s gotten several phone calls from the Sheriff\u2019s Office, apologizing for the incident.<strong>[private]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe apologies are empty as far as I\u2019m concerned, because they\u2019ve done so many bad things to me. I want my identity back and I want to be able to practice my religion the same as others.\u201d<br \/>\n<strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Harper\u2019s<\/strong> attorney, <strong>Eric Taylor<\/strong>, said right now the case is in an investigative stage.<strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re taking a look at the case to see what direction to head in. I will say the Sheriff\u2019s Office was wrong for asking him to leave. Right now, I\u2019m hesitant to make a judgment without the facts to determine if that was the policy of the judge, because judges can adopt any policy they want for their courtroom when it comes to the way you dress.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Taylor<\/strong> said he\u2019s going to review the policy of that judge, then advise his client what the net step should be.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s possible, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLUI) may get involved.\u201d<em><\/em> <strong>[\/private]<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY LEON B. CREWS Sentinel Staff Writer Since he was 14 years old, Sanford Harper, II, has been a practicing Muslim. He often dresses in Muslim gowns when he\u2019s out in public and he\u2019s never gotten a complaint from anyone. Last Wednesday, Harper was in traffic court to dispute a citation for not wearing a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}