No laws broken in strip search Yamhill County district attorney bases his decision on a state police report
By Dana Tims and Inara Verzemnieks of The Oregonian staff
McMINNVILLE - Yamhill County District Attorney Brad Berry said Friday that no laws were broken in the Jan. 29 strip search of girls at Duniway Middle School, although mistakes in judgment were made.
Forty-five girls between the ages of 12 and 14 were detained after thefts were reported in a third-period gym class. Forty-four were students in the class, but school officials also pulled a girl out of another class who had been in the locker room during the gym class period.
All but seven of the girls were strip-searched by women police employees. A school district official halted the process an hour after it began.
"I don't feel there was sufficient probable cause to search these girls," Berry said. His decision not to press charges was based on his review of a 1,000-page report the Oregon State Police compiled on the Duniway incident at the McMinnville Police Department's request. "Mistakes have been made," Berry said. "Now we need to learn from those mistakes and move on."
The two adults who oversaw the search have already faced some consequences for their roles. McMinnville Police Officer Kent Stuart, who was the school resource officer, was transferred to patrol, and Pat Jenkins, Duniway vice principal, resigned.
Berry said there was no evidence of criminal intent underlying the actions of Jenkins or Stuart.
According to the findings of the state police investigation, this is what happened at Duniway that day: About 11 a.m., the girls discovered that their locker room had been ransacked. Money, a compact disc player, compact discs, candy, jewelry and makeup were missing.
They told their gym teacher. She told Jenkins, who summoned Stuart to come with her to the gym.
Stuart asked the guilty party to come forward. No one did. After consulting with Jenkins, Stuart told the girls, "If you don't come forward you will be strip-searched," Berry said.
-snip-
The women police employees patted the girls down and asked them to shake out their bras, unbutton their pants and quickly pull their underwear down and up to see whether any of the stolen items might fall out.
-end excerpt-
Good find. I don’t think I would want my child going to an Oregon public school—well any public school really.
It's okay for adults to make mistakes by strip searching teenage girls over stolen property (let's move on), but lets prosecute silly 13 year old boys to the full extent.