Two Tennessee high-schoolers were thrown in jail for wearing saggy pants to school, according to local reports.
Antonio Ammons, an 18-year-old student at Bolivar Central High, spent 48 hours behind bars after a school resource officer charged him with indecent exposure for the drooping denim, WMC Action News 5 reported.
Four students at the school—about 70 miles east of Memphis—were charged with indecent exposure over saggy pants. Only two, including Ammons and another 18-year-old, served jail time, according to sheriff’s department records.
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Ammons, who lives with his great-grandmother, is left wondering how to pay for $250 in court costs in fines, WMC reported.
“I just took it and went on. I didn’t know what else to do,” Ammons told WMC of his arrest, adding that he’s never been locked up before.
According to the affidavit of complaint published by WMC, the school resource officer, Hardeman County Deputy Charles Woods, said he “addressed Antonio Ammons concerning sagging his pants” on Nov. 5.
In the report, Deputy Woods said Ammons had “to be prompted all day, every day not to sagg [sic] his pants. Antonio walks around all day every day disrespecting the rules of the school, the principal, the teachers, other students and even the SRO.”
Woods said Ammons had “an attitude when asked to pull up his pants from sagging” and was warned “several times” before complying with school staff and the officer himself.
According to Deputy Woods, Ammons was suspended from the Bolivar school in August for “showing gang related/hate violence or intimidation.”
The Hardeman County Schools handbook states that “low slung, baggy seat, baggy legged or bell bottom pants are not permitted,” WREG in Memphis reported.
Still, students didn’t think the punishment fit the crime.
“I think it’s just a little harsh. They didn’t need to go to that extreme,” student Cheyenne Lindsey told WMC.
