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FSU Recruits Accuse Disney Of Harassment

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By SCOTT CARTER, The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 28, 2007

What began as a fun night out for five Florida State football recruits ended late Friday with Moses McCray running across a parking lot to escape what he and the other players consider harassment by Walt Disney World security guards.

McCray, a senior-to-be who recently transferred from Middleton to Hillsborough High, said Wednesday that the players are considering legal action after being ejected and banned for life from Downtown Disney under the theme park's recently beefed up antigang, no-loitering policy.

'I feel something should happen,' said McCray, a 6-foot-2, 270-pound defensive lineman. 'We were just hanging out. It's not illegal. I feel the trespassing warrants should be dropped against the other guys. We did nothing wrong. They were harassing us, basically.'

Disney spokeswoman Jacquee Polak offered a different version of events Wednesday, saying, 'This particular group of guests was seen loitering for a particularly long time at the Downtown Disney complex.' Polak said that when the players were asked to leave, they refused.

Along with the Orange County Sheriff's Department, Disney officials are trying to rid their entertainment complexes of 'inappropriate behavior' and teen loitering, Polak said.

According to sheriff's department records, Orange County deputies have issued at least 48 trespass warnings at Downtown Disney the past two weekends. Of those, 46 were bans for life, and 45 of those people were black or Hispanic.

All five of the FSU recruits are black. The players, some of whom had not met before last weekend, all have verbally committed to play at FSU in 2008. They gathered for a weekend barbecue at the Polk County home of Vincent Williams, a linebacker at Ridge Community High in Davenport. Besides McCray and Williams, Jacksonville First Coast teammates Avis Commack and Nigel Carr attended, as did Philadelphia Roman Catholic defensive back Nick Moody.

Moody's father, Philadelphia civil rights lawyer Adrian J. Moody, intends to gather more information about the incident to determine whether legal action is warranted. He characterized the incident, as he understands it, as a classic case of racial profiling.

'I'm just trying to understand how you can have such a ban at a public facility,' Moody said Wednesday evening. 'I can tell you this, based on what I know now, it sounds like profiling to me. These are good kids. It's sad for them to have to go through something like this. This is one of those things that, in my view, it needs to be dealt with right now so they can clear their names.'

After dinner Friday night, the five teens walked around the Downtown Disney area for more than an hour, said McCray, before the players stopped for a while while deciding what movie to see.

McCray said that about 11 p.m., when the Pleasure Island nightclub section of Downtown Disney begins to admit only patrons 21 or older, 10 to 15 Disney security officials told them they needed to leave.

'There were Caucasian kids near us, and they didn't bother them,' McCray said. 'I know that they weren't 21.'

McCray said they told the security guards they were hanging out while deciding what movie to see.

'They produced a movie ticket stub for a movie that had already started,' Polak said. 'That's what led to the trespass warning being issued.'

Orange County Sheriff's spokesman Capt. Mark Strobridge said that also is when his agency was called in by Disney security. Strobridge said that once several off-duty officers arrived, the players complied, and that four of them - Moody, Williams, Commack and Carr - were fingerprinted, photographed and issued trespassing citations, which is standard procedure in such cases.

McCray said this was the point when he ventured away to get a drink and that because he thought they were being treated unfairly, he walked away and then ran across a parking lot.

Polak said she was not aware of any legal action filed by the group.

Reporter Scott Carter can be reached at 850-294-3088 or scarter@tampatrib.com.

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