Posted on 11/11/2003 8:09:54 AM PST by CanisRex
GOOSE GREEK--Last Wednesday started out like most any other school day for Ray Glover, a senior at Stratford High School -- until police officers with guns drawn stormed into the school's cafeteria at 6:45 a.m. and began barking orders at startled students. The perplexed Glover said he had no idea what was happening, or why.
"The police came into the cafeteria with the dogs, and then they chased one kid down the hall," said Glover, a tall 19-year-old with braided hair who is known by the nickname "Bolo."
"I know that some students who've never seen a gun in their lives were really scared," he said.
Glover said an officer hustled him out of the cafeteria and into the hallway, placed plastic handcuffs on him and made him lie on the floor while his clothes and book bag were searched.
"He was yelling, telling me to get down," he said. "The police are crazy nowadays. If stuff like this keeps happening, a lot of students won't want to come back to school."
It's been nearly a week since the Goose Greek Police Department's drug sweep sparked both widespread criticism and a state law enforcement investigation. School officials -- tentatively, at least -- still stand behind the drug sweep, which netted no drugs or arrests. Questions about why police officers felt it necessary to draw their weapons on teenagers and whether black students were unfairly targeted have only grown more insistent.
Representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union plan to come to Goose Creek this week to investigate whether the group should sue, said Anjuli Verma, with the ACLU's drug policy litigation project in Washington, D.C.
Many Stratford students are more than willing to share their stories.
When Sam and Josh Ody stepped off the bus at Stratford High the morning of the drug search, they headed to their usual spots -- Sam, a senior, to the lunchroom, and junior Josh to the end of the hall by the stairwell where his friends congregate.
Shortly after Sam sat down in the cafeteria, a coach came up and told the students at his table to put their hands on the table. When the students asked why, they were told it was the principal's orders.
Then a police officer came over and bound Sam's hands behind his back with yellow restraints, took him into the hallway and told him to face the wall as a dog smelled his bag. He watched as his binders and folders were dumped out on the floor.
Then the principal, George McCrackin, patted him down, checked his shoes and took out his wallet, asking him where he got the approximately $100 he was carrying, Sam said. The student said he told McCrackin he had just gotten paid at his job at KFC.
"The people I hang out with are not drug dealers," Sam said. "We play basketball. We have nice clothes because we have jobs."
Down the hall, Josh was standing with his friends when he heard a rustling and felt something hit him in the back. When he turned around, he said, he saw a police officer standing behind him with his gun drawn.
"He told me to get down on the ground," said Josh, who then was instructed to put his hands behind his head and stay down.
Sam and Josh said that when the search was over, police told them that any innocent bystanders in the crowd should blame the search on the people bringing drugs to school. Then the students who had been bound were released and told to go to class.
Since Wednesday, Sam and Josh's father, Nathaniel Ody, has tried to meet with McCrackin to discuss why his sons were targeted. So far, Ody said, he hasn't had any luck. It's not like the Ody family isn't known at Stratford High -- four older siblings have been through the school, and both Sam and Josh are athletes.
The brothers and other students interviewed Monday were hesitant to say that race played a factor in the search, but they noted that police searched the hallway where black students tend to hang out and that most of the students involved were black males.
"They handled it the wrong way. Most people aren't used to officers pointing guns at them," said Gerney Glover, a freshman who was sitting near the auditorium and watched police run in with guns. "I really didn't like starting my freshman year off like this."
What the raid accomplished, though not in the best way, was a wake-up call, said senior Scott Rice. "If there were drugs in any school, they're not going to be for a while now."
Chester Floyd, superintendent of Berkeley County schools, said Monday that neither McCrackin nor any district official knew police would come in with guns drawn.
"Had we known that the method of search had changed, the principal would not have requested the intervention," Floyd said. "However, once police are on campus, they are in charge."
He declined to take a position on whether police acted correctly, saying the district would wait until the State Law Enforcement Division ends its investigation.
"But we understand fully the concerns of parents. We have similar concerns. I'm sorry for any student who experienced this if it was unwarranted," he said.
Floyd said he knew of no other drug sweep in any school nationwide in which police came in with guns at the ready. "We want to be first in a lot of things," he said. "But I'm not sure we want to be first in this."
Goose Greek police Lt. Dave Aarons has said several of the 14 officers who entered the school drew their guns as a matter of officer safety because drugs often go hand-in-hand with weapons.
Stratford High is the largest school in Berkeley County and second-largest statewide, with nearly 2,700 students. Because of its size, it has more surveillance than other schools in the county -- about 70 cameras that have been installed within the past two years.
Some parents accuse officers of targeting black students. About 70 percent of the 107 students who happened to be in the hallway are black. At that time in the morning, two early buses have dropped off students from predominately black neighborhoods.
Berkeley County schools will continue to hold unannounced drug sweeps using police dogs, Floyd said, but "the more routine kind," without guns drawn. The sweeps occur periodically at the schools, at principals' request. Generally, high schools hold two or three each year, he said.
"My concern," Floyd said, "is that we get back to some normalcy."
If the schools want to bring cops into the school system, be prepared for what cops do. I don't know if I would have pulled my gun or not. If I had felt the need to I would have, high school or city street.
I'd like to see the cops out of the schools, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen. Unless of course more people get tired of cops arresting kids in school and start suing. Lawsuits seem to be the only things that bring about change in this country.
Our school district is such a bunch of panzie's they won't even give a kid a detention anymore.
The school board places high risk kids in with normal kids because they can't throw them out.
Therein lies the problem.
Government schools are the problem.
There were no drugs in this raid. And the only guns were the one's the cops had trained on the unarmed kids in that school.
The school board places high risk kids in with normal kids because they can't throw them out. Therein lies the problem.
I agree with that part. If the school districts want to fix the problem, maybe they should fire some administrators and hire some lawyers to fight in court for their right to expell the problems.
Of course good kids wouldn't have anything to worry about. The bad kids are the ones who need the adjustment. But the school district is not willing to throw the bad kids out, they just keep them in school. They mix them with the good kids.
The problem is the government school system, that's my point. And I don't foresee it getting fixed anytime soon.
Government employees (especially police) are a protected class. Simple assault on someone in the private sector is just that, simple assault. But if it's a cop or some other government employee, well that's felony time. Oh, and they are allowed to shoot you if you make a "furtive move" or something like that.
The school calls us and plans ahead for a day when the 'raid' will occur because they have noticed drugs and weapons in the school. On the scheduled day it happens, kind of a hit or miss thing. Same thing happened here. Seometimes we've gotten drugs and sometimes we havent. Sometimes weapons, sometimes not.
But the point is, the school refuses to handle the problem, they call the police. I wish the police dept. would say "NO, handle it yourself." But they won't probably because since Columbine (I believe this is right) the government says that police dept.'s have to have a plan to handle school emergencies such as this, kids with weapons and drugs.
It's a catch-22.
We had a kid involved in a murder who petitioned to stay in school. The school board said "I can't kick him out." They eventually said no, but do you see the point? Kid involved in a MURDER and they can't throw him out of school.
About 10 to 12 times a year we take guns and knives off of kids at the schools here.
Precisely why no government employee should be given the authority to touch children.
that's my point.
Throwing them out is the right thing to do, not empowering teachers to use violence.
And I don't foresee it getting fixed anytime soon.
It will never be fixed by the manner you advocated.
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