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Letter to the editor

Dispute at mall is he said, they said

Police report that the man was rude. He says the police overreacted.

By RITA FARLOW, Times Staff Writer
Published December 24, 2007

ST. PETERSBURG - Tyrone Square Mall officials on Sunday said they stand behind their security guards' decision to seek a trespass warning against a man who claimed he couldn't find his car in the parking lot.

Security guards at the mall asked St. Petersburg police to issue a trespass warning to Larry DiSalvo after guards reported seeing him peering into cars and wiggling door handles in the parking lot.

DiSalvo, 57, of Treasure Island, says he had forgotten where he parked and was searching for his car. He claimed security guards and police overreacted when they not only issued him a trespass warning, but snapped his photograph and told him to stay off the property for good.

A story about the incident was published in Sunday's St. Petersburg Times.

In a statement released Sunday evening, mall marketing director Tara Houser said: "Mall management has reviewed the situation with the St. Petersburg (Police Department) and we agree that the situation and final investigation did warrant the trespass."

St. Petersburg police on Sunday also released a report, which paints DiSalvo as anything but a perfect gentleman during the incident. The report states that DiSalvo made "rude and racist remarks" toward the security guards.

Police wrote that DiSalvo referred to security guards as "Nazis" and said that one guard "must be from New York as he looked like he was Italian and was on welfare."

In a phone interview with the Times on Sunday, DiSalvo denied making those remarks.

"That's a lie. I'm Italian," DiSalvo said. "They're going to lie through their teeth because, I believe, they should not have done what they did, especially after I was totally cooperative and I gave them positive identification."

The police report also states that DiSalvo was rude to the police officers, threatened to call the media and "to file a lawsuit against everyone."

The report states DiSalvo told officers he knew the owner of the mall and told one security guard that he would "have his job."

DiSalvo said he was trying to find his car in the mall's packed parking lot Saturday morning when he was approached by mall security.

A security guard told DiSalvo that he had been seen peering into cars and trying to enter them, DiSalvo said. He said he was asked to leave, and did so, walking across Tyrone Boulevard to Kinko's.

In their reports, police wrote that security guards told them DiSalvo ran from them to the Kinko's.

DiSalvo said he intended to call for a ride and to have someone pick up his car for him. Instead, police came to Kinko's, searched him and took him back to the mall parking lot to retrieve his vehicle, which security guards had located in the interim.

DiSalvo, a retired real estate agent with no apparent criminal record, said Sunday he never will visit the mall again after 14 years of shopping there.

"Even with an apology from them, I wouldn't go back to that mall with that type of organization in place," he said. "I do not feel safe."

[Last modified December 23, 2007, 23:58:30]