When Kraig Randall walked into Today's Fashion in the Massapequa's Westfield Mall, which sold tee shirts emblazoned with the emblems of his athletic teams and other messages, he was approached by a salesperson there. "Where are you from?" Randall said he was asked. And, when he told the salesperson he was from Amityville, Randall was shown several tee shirts with derogatory comments and racial slurs promoting local gang activity in Amityville Other similar shirts were printed for other areas including Wyandanch, Hempstead, North Babylon and Freeport.

"I was offended," said Randall. "I told him that, and also said it was ignorant to promote things like that and show them to young people." But Randall didn't stop there. He took a photo of

the shirt with his cell phone, and when he went home, he told his sister, who related the story to youth leaders in the community, including Rosemarie Dearing, executive director of NACEC. Dearing contacted Babylon Town Supervisor Steve Bellone, and began to bring community pressure on the store owners and officials of Westfield Mall to stop the sale of the tee shirts.

"What is so very offensive is that they were targeting young black boys trying to sell these shirts," said Dearing who together with several other local leaders went to the store to register their dissatisfaction. "We have worked extremely hard to fight against the influence of gangs and racism in our community and maybe I am naive, but I thought we had this behind us."

"What they were doing is marketing the gang mentality here in our community for purely financial gain," said an angry Bellone as he held the press conference in front of NACEC headquarters August 26. "We have worked very hard to protect our young people from this type of mentality, and this just assists the gangs who continue to be a real threat not only here in Babylon but nationwide. It is exploitation for financial gain at its worst."

Trish Ketelsen, a spokeswoman for the Westfield Mall in Massapequa said the issue was brought to the Mall's attention prior to the press conference by a shopper at which time Mall officials contacted the store's management.

"We were not aware he was selling these items and asked him to remove them immediately," said Ketelson. "He has cooperated fully and we will be monitoring the store. We take a zero tolerance position to this type of thing."

Some of the shirts were hung across a railing during the press conference, but were removed after television camera crews advised that the messages were so offensive that their producers would not allow the the event to be aired if the shirts were left in the background.

Bishop Michael Talbert, a school board member in North Babylon who attended the press confer- ence, said that the owners of the store, and the mall, owe the community an apology.

"It is amazing that as we fight to eliminate this culture (of gang activity) from our community, others seek to take economic advantage of it," he said. "We are not going to take this, and we want an immediate apology from the companies who make and sell these products."

Bellone said that clearly there are First Amendment rights to be considered in this controversy but that his position is that just because they can do it doesn't mean they should. "What we are asking for are some business ethics and morals because it is not right to market and assist gangs in recruiting and exploiting our young children," he said.

Dionne Mack, chair of the board of NACEC, said the tee shirts foster a "hate mentality" that will not be tolerated.

"We are sending a clear message to any store owner or manufacturer who is selling or considering selling tee shirts such as these that they are not welcome in our town." she said.