Politics Excessive Force Used In Drug Search

Jaimie

Retired
Police raid a high school for drugs in Goose Creek, South Carolina.
(Keep In Mind these are 14-18 year old teens)

(CNN) -- After complaints from parents and students, police in Goose Creek, South Carolina, defended their decision Friday to send a team of officers, some with guns drawn, into a high school earlier this week for a drug raid that turned up no drugs.

The Berkeley School District north of Charleston, South Carolina, also defended its role in the incident, which has triggered outrage among some in the community.

Stratford High School students described Wednesday's incident as frightening.

"They would go put a gun up to them, push them against the wall, take their book bags and search them," Aaron Sims, 14, told CNN affiliate WCSC. "They just came up and got my friend, not even saying anything or what was going to happen. ... I was scared."
Sims said his mother was "a little angry," but his father understood and "thought it was necessary."

Lt. Dave Aarons of the Goose Creek Police Department said the raid, the first the department has done at a school, followed a police investigation into drug activity that began after a student informed school staff about drug sales on school property.

Police monitored video from school surveillance cameras for several days and "observed consistent, organized drug activity," he said. "Students were posing as lookouts and concealing themselves from the cameras."

When the principal saw more of the same suspicious activity on the school surveillance video, he asked for the officers to respond, Aarons said.

On Wednesday, 14 officers went to the school "and assumed strategic positions," he said.

Within 30 seconds, officers had moved to "safely secure the 107 students who were in that hallway," Aarons said. "During that time some of the officers did unholster in a down-ready position, so that they would be able to respond if the situation became violent."

"The school also designated faculty to secure the hallway to keep other students from entering," Aarons said.

Anytime narcotics and money are involved he said there is "the reasonable assumption that weapons will be involved. ... Our primary concern was the safety of the students (and) everyone else involved."
'School had no knowledge that weapons would be drawn'

Aarons said "12 to 14 students" were placed in handcuffs or plastic flexcuffs "due to their failure to respond to repeated police instructions to get on their knees with their hands on their heads," after one of the lieutenants explained to the students what was going on.

A canine unit was brought in and the dog responded positively to 12 book bags, which were then searched by school officials, said David Barrow, secondary school supervisor for the Berkeley School District. But no drugs were found and no arrests were made.

"The school had no knowledge that weapons would be drawn," Barrow said. "We understand students' and parents' and the community's concerns about this particular search. We will work internally and with local law enforcement to be sure these issues are addressed."

Still, he said, the school was concerned about possible drug sales on campus, and believed action was necessary.

Jared Weeks, 14, told WCSC that police were aggressive.

"They kind of pushed us against the wall and started searching us," Weeks said. "I didn't think all that was called for."

Weeks said he was "kind of nervous," but not scared "because I didn't have anything to hide."

He said there are a lot of drugs in the school, but that this sort of raid was unnecessary. "There is certain people that you know sell drugs," he said. "They could have just searched those people."

Aarons said police believe the drug-dealing students were tipped off.

"I don't think it was an overreaction," he said of the raid. "I believe it was one tactical method by which we could safely approach the problem to ensure that everybody was safe."

He said the incident is being reviewed, as is every police operation.

A police raid at a South Carolina high school in which a dozen officers stormed into the hallways with their guns drawn, handcuffed students, and used drug-sniffing dogs to search their backpacks -- all of which was recorded on the school's video-taping system -- is now being investigated by state police.

No drugs or weapons were discovered during the raid and no arrest were made by the local Goose Creek police.

Pictures:

stratfordraid.jpg


stratfordraid2.jpg
 
That's a hard one to really judge...I mean there obviously was a fair amount of force (I'm not sure if it could be judged as "excessive") but also the drug problem was extensive and something drastic needed to be done.
 
Flak jackets? Guns drawn? Has this country gone fascist or what? No wonder I recently joined the ACLU. :angry:

I just checked out the ACLU's website; they have filed a lawsuit about this. Read their article here.

Interesting, isn't it, that nothing was found after all that. <_<
 
Have those who made the decision to stage that raid heard of a certain lovely old document we have in this country called the Constitution? It's supposed to be the law of the land, and I hear federal judges are quite fond of it. <_<

I am also concerned about what this teaches our young people about democracy and civil rights. How are they supposed to learn to respect authority when they see authority being abused so blatantly?
 
Sadly, we live in a world where such actions are necessary. :(
Many teenagers abuse the rights they have been given, so now all teenagers rights are taken away for the few who cause problems.


~~Spongy!
 
I hardly think waving guns around and handcuffing people was necessary. I'm going to be very curious to see how this case turns out. It's sad to see my own country being turned into a police state. :angry:
 
SpongeBobSquarePants said:
Sadly, we live in a world where such actions are necessary. :(
Many teenagers abuse the rights they have been given, so now all teenagers rights are taken away for the few who cause problems.


~~Spongy!
I totally agree! If teens were known for respecting authority, we would in turn be respected...unfortunatly some have ruined this for us all.



It's sad to see my own country being turned into a police state. 

Overreact much?!?!? :rolleyes:
 
I don't think so. Check out the photos on the ACLU website here and see what you think. And I hardly think you will learn respect if you are not treated with respect.
 
the school was waaay overreacting. what about all the innocent students who didnt do drugs who were searched, and had guns put up to them? i mean, schools are taking this zero tolerance policy and stuff too harshly. Yes, the students should be protected against this sort of thing, but this was not neccesary! i mean, look at this:

South Dakota School Officials Terrorized Kindergarten Classes with Drug-Sniffing Dogs, ACLU Charges

July 25, 2002

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SIOUX FALLS, SD--The American Civil Liberties Union today filed a federal class-action lawsuit on behalf of 17 Native American students - some as young as six years old - who were terrorized when public school officials and law enforcement officers brought in a German Shepherd to conduct a suspicionless drug sweep of all K-12 classrooms.
One of the plaintiffs in the case, Jonathan Heth, 2nd grade

“What this school administration allowed is truly shocking,” said Graham Boyd, Director of the ACLU’s Drug Policy Litigation Project and lead counsel in the case. “Officials at this school, along with law enforcement officers, seem to be pioneering a practice of treating even the youngest students like hardened criminals.”

The case, Shenona Banks et al. v. Wagner School Board, is being filed on behalf of 17 Native American students who attend the Wagner Community School in rural Wagner, located near the Yankton Sioux Reservation, two-and-a-half hours west of Sioux Falls.

The ACLU lawsuit seeks a court order barring the school and law enforcement officials from any further dog searches when school begins on August 20.

While drug-sniffing dogs have been used in recent years to search classrooms, Boyd said this appears to be the first reported incident of drug-sniffing dogs being used directly on elementary school children.

“As schools look for legitimate ways to address drug and alcohol abuse, we need to be vigilant against the war on drugs becoming a war on our youngest children,” said Boyd. “This incident could only occur in an environment that places the war on drugs over common sense.”

According to the ACLU complaint, on two separate days in May a number of local and federal law enforcement officers led a large German Shepherd police dog through the classrooms after the principal announced a “lockdown” over the loudspeaker. A school official who accompanied the police instructed the students to put their hands on their desks and avoid petting or looking at the dog or making any sudden movements. In some classrooms, a school official told students that any sudden movement could cause the dog to attack.

In at least one instance, the ACLU complaint said, the dog escaped its leash in a kindergarten class and chased students around the room. Some students had been traumatized by previous dog attacks and one young girl still has the scars of a previous attack on her face. Many began crying and trembling and at least one urinated involuntarily.

“German Shepherds are commonly used by police to attack and apprehend dangerous criminal suspects,” said Jennifer Ring, Executive Director of the Dakotas chapter of the ACLU. “The very notion of there being a drug problem in the kindergarten is ludicrous.”

Parents of the students named in the lawsuit said that Wagner, with a population of less than 1,700, is a hotbed of racial tensions between Native Americans and whites. Although Native Americans make up 40 percent of the school district’s population, none serve on the Wagner School Board.

The school board approved the suspicionless search and is listed as a defendant along with the Wagner Chief of Police and an official with the Indian Affairs Bureau of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

The ACLU complaint further charged that the containment of children within their classrooms for several hours and the subsequent police dog sniff of those students constitutes an “unreasonable search and seizure” and a violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and an identical provision of the South Dakota constitution.

James Leach of Rapid City is serving as ACLU cooperating attorney in this case.



These were ****ing kindergartners! Schools are taking things like this too far! If my child were in this school, i'd fight them on it.
 
Yes, I read about this one a while back too. Still think I'm overreacting, folks? 

Umm...yep! I think the fact that you have a couple of incidents and all of the sudden you think the US is becoming a police state is a severe overreaction. High schools all over the US are being checked out for drugs, the fact that only the few have involved such extreme measures is a disservice to the public by the media at large.



The fact that the second article bills German Shepherd drug dogs as attack dogs makes really mad. Anyone who is involved with the German Shepherd police dog community, knows that these dogs are not trained as "attack dogs". The fact that the children were told to respect these dogs was for there own safety. Although they are not "attack dogs", they are working dogs that are not usually used to having children in their face even though they are highly socialized dogs. I highly doubt the fact that a dog "got loose" and chased children. These dogs live to follow orders from their handlers. A dog who would display behavior like that would never be employed by a police force. Who is really to blame is the school system, most often it is the school districts that okay the police searchs. Police don't one day just decide to "raid" a school-the school has to request it.
 
Princess Jeanie said:
Yes, I read about this one a while back too. Still think I'm overreacting, folks? 

Umm...yep! I think the fact that you have a couple of incidents and all of the sudden you think the US is becoming a police state is a severe overreaction. High schools all over the US are being checked out for drugs, the fact that only the few have involved such extreme measures is a disservice to the public by the media at large.



The fact that the second article bills German Shepherd drug dogs as attack dogs makes really mad. Anyone who is involved with the German Shepherd police dog community, knows that these dogs are not trained as "attack dogs". The fact that the children were told to respect these dogs was for there own safety. Although they are not "attack dogs", they are working dogs that are not usually used to having children in their face even though they are highly socialized dogs. I highly doubt the fact that a dog "got loose" and chased children. These dogs live to follow orders from their handlers. A dog who would display behavior like that would never be employed by a police force. Who is really to blame is the school system, most often it is the school districts that okay the police searchs. Police don't one day just decide to "raid" a school-the school has to request it.
It starts with just a couple incidents, and starts becoming more and more, saying its for our own safety, until it's commonplace. I mean, everything has to start with something.
 
VaughnFan13 said:
Princess Jeanie said:
Yes, I read about this one a while back too. Still think I'm overreacting, folks? 

Umm...yep! I think the fact that you have a couple of incidents and all of the sudden you think the US is becoming a police state is a severe overreaction. High schools all over the US are being checked out for drugs, the fact that only the few have involved such extreme measures is a disservice to the public by the media at large.
It starts with just a couple incidents, and starts becoming more and more, saying its for our own safety, until it's commonplace. I mean, everything has to start with something.
Okay, I can understand that view...but blame the schools, not the police.
 
The school said they did not expect the police to handcuff people, shove them against walls, and pull guns on them. The police did not have to act like storm troopers.

I believe that we cannot become complacent about protecting the rights we take for granted in this country. There are always those who would be only too happy to take them from us. That is why I joined the ACLU.
 
Ophelia said:
The school said they did not expect the police to handcuff people, shove them against walls, and pull guns on them. The police did not have to act like storm troopers.

I believe that we cannot become complacent about protecting the rights we take for granted in this country. There are always those who would be only too happy to take them from us. That is why I joined the ACLU.
Yes, since the police are all against us :rolleyes: .

And when you need help, who exactly are you gonna expect to be there?
 
All I'm saying is the police didn't have to overreact. A drug search could have been carried out with a little more restraint while still getting the job done. I wonder if some of those cops felt the same way.
 
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