Man jailed for unlawful skating
By ALEXANDRA ZAYAS
Published January 22, 2007
TAMPA - Skateboarders see the world differently, Adam Kowzun explained. Some people see parking lots and stairs.
"We see ledges and we see gaps," the 25-year-old from Atlanta said. And consequently, police see lawbreakers.
In town for the world's biggest amateur skateboarding competition, the 13th annual Tampa Am at the Skatepark of Tampa, Kowzun wanted to see what the world's best could do on Tampa's urban landscape.
He did, and got a night in Orient Road Jail. His crime: unlawful rollerskating. His sentence: 20 hours.
After official events, Kowzun and about 40 other skaters, some with video cameras, gathered on a set of 12 steps in downtown Tampa to watch three skaters do tricks. When a Tampa police officer dispersed them, Kowzun and his friends rolled back to the Embassy Suites Hotel. They didn't think they were breaking any rules.
" 'No skating' to me means no jumping downstairs, getting hurt," Kowzun thought. But as they waited for an elevator at the hotel, the officer caught up to them. He went straight for Kowzun.
"Don't resist," the officer said as he put him in handcuffs. Kowzun, a courier for a court reporting agency, was the only boarder arrested over the weekend for unlawful skating.
Sunday morning, Kowzun said the judge and lawyers laughed when his charge was announced.
After he was released Sunday, Kowzun clutched his board outside of the skatepark and reflected with friends on the duality of the skateboarding.
It's a sport, requiring balance, coordination and drive. But because the best stunts happen in urban landscapes, as skateboarders look over their shoulders for police, there's that edge of counterculture.
"The first time I got kicked out of somewhere, I was like, 'Yeah,' " said Cole Frazier, 18. "You feel like a real skateboarder."
Frazier spent 16 hours in a Gainesville, Ga., jail for skateboarding. Kowzun's other Atlanta friend, 23-year-old Justin Massa, has gotten criminal trespassing citations in Philadelphia, Nashville and Atlanta.
Just like the broken bones and bruises, the citations are trophies. Kowzun has his tickets framed.
"I wish they wouldn't hate us so much for skating," Frazier said. "It's just a plank of wood on wheels."
But to the hundreds of skaters who came to Tampa this weekend from as far away as Australia, it means so much more. It's what they wear, the music they listen to, who they look up to, who they hang out with.
They like that there is no one way to do a kickflip, no book of rules regulating style. They don't want to be confined to half-pipes at skateparks. They want to defy gravity.
Would Kowzun change things to make skating easy for future generations?
"Skateboarding is perfect just how it is," Kowzun said.
Alexandra Zayas can be reached at 813 226-3354 or azayas@sptimes.com.