Just two months into its existence as the city's high school for gays and lesbians, Harvey Milk's reputation is being soured by its students' high-profile arrests, students and school officials said yesterday. Five transgender students were busted Thursday for posing as West Village hookers and ripping off would-be johns by flashing phony police badges and demanding cash. Last month, three students were arrested after a melee that ended in a stabbing. "It's messing up the school's reputation," said 10th-grader Michael (Diamond) Jones, 17. "They hold it against us when we're all not like that." For anyone counting, that makes at least eight Harvey Milk students arrested in after-school misdeeds in two months - or more than 7% of the student population. And two of the men who want to be women arrested Thursday had previous arrests in the past year, police confirmed. One of the students, Brian (Whoopie) Gonzalez has had three arrests since Oct. 18 - including one for loitering for the purpose of prostitution. "Whoopie was the nasty one," Jones said. Oddly, the school was created to protect the students, and now some students have become the danger. Still, the Department of Education is supporting the Astor Place school. "These were two serious, isolated incidents and we are taking disciplinary action in each case," the department said in a statement yesterday. Yet the school's problems have led some Education officials at the Tweed Courthouse to joke about an office pool for when the school will close. That didn't stop Principal Bill Salzman from trying to put a happy spin on the story, telling reporters yesterday how the school was holding student government elections. "All I know is that we're serving the needs of the students," he said. The five students will be suspended, school officials said. But Salzman noted that Gonzalez, Kelvin (Keesha) Howell, Keenan (Chanel) Oliver, Kevin (Keva) Williams and Gerald (Kimberly) Howard will be welcomed back if the charges don't stick. Backed by a dozen transgender supporters who greeted each other with pecks on the cheek, the five were arraigned last night on charges of robbery and impersonating a police officer. "They're innocent until proven guilty," Salzman said. But students said some of the five had shown off their arsenal outside the school in the days before being busted. "I just didn't catch on to it why they had a badge, handcuffs and a toy gun," said 10th-grader Alex Whitman, 17. But classmates described them as artistic and friendly kids who enjoyed wearing women's clothing. "You look at them as boys, and they do not look good," said 10th-grader John Perez. "They're good kids," said Stephanie Garcia, 16, a 10th-grader. "They don't start trouble."
With Martin Mbugua
Originally published on November 8, 2003 |
