11-15-2003, 03:11 AM
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#2 (permalink)
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Delicious
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Follow-up Story:
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n1744/a05.html?397
Quote:
STATE INVESTIGATES SCHOOL DRUG SWEEP
SLED To Determine If Police Misconduct Involved
GOOSE CREEK ( AP ) -- State police are investigating why officers charged into a crowded high school hallway with guns drawn in a drug sweep.
Videotape from Stratford High School surveillance cameras showed students sitting on the floor Wednesday while officers with guns drawn looked for drugs.
Charleston-area prosecutor Ralph Hoisington asked the State Law Enforcement Division to look into possible police misconduct in the operation. He called for the probe Friday after consulting with Berkeley County Sheriff Wayne DeWitt.
No drugs were found in the early-morning sweep that included 14 officers and one drug dog. Some students were cuffed during the raid.
"I don't think there's anything wrong at all with law enforcement addressing a problem in a high school, but I have serious concerns about the need for restraining students and drawing weapons," Hoisington said. "I don't want to send my child to a school and find out guns are drawn on them. I certainly don't want them hog-tied as part of a sweeping investigation."
The only charges stemming from Wednesday's raid involved a ninth-grader who was charged with filing a false police report after she said an officer shoved her to the ground during the search, Goose Creek police Lt. Dave Aarons said.
Principal George McCrackin said he, other school officials and the girl's parent reviewed video surveillance tapes and determined she wasn't even in that hall at the time.
McCrackin said he had talked with police about what he called a growing drug problem at the school.
"Within the last three weeks, there's been an influx of drug activity," he said. "I've been in this business for 34 years, and I've never seen the amount of activity we've experienced recently."
Aarons said the guns were guns were drawn as "a matter of officer safety."
"I don't think it was an overreaction," he said. "Anytime you have qualified information regarding drugs and large amounts of money, there's a reasonable assumption weapons are involved."
Police handcuffed students who failed to "respond to repeated police instruction," Aarons said.
The scene captured on the school video surveillance cameras was played much of the day on national news channels.
"I'm absolutely outraged," said Danny Partin, whose stepson attends Stratford but was not in the hallway during the search. "This is supposed to be a free country, not a police state."
Parent Nathaniel Ody went to the police department Friday afternoon to file a complaint. He said his son, a senior basketball player, was pulled from another part of the school Wednesday and placed in the hallway in restraints. He claims his son was compliant but was handcuffed anyway.
"I'm appalled," he said. "To just take a bunch of innocent kids and put them in restraints, and then not even find anything, is ridiculous."
Sweeps happen periodically at high schools, at principals' request, but this is the first time restraints were used, said Dave Barrow, supervisor for Berkeley County high schools.
"We understand students, parents and community concerns about this particular search," Barrow said.
Some area residents sympathized with the officers. "I'm sure students were frightened, but the harm they're in with drug dealers is far greater than the police coming in," said Goose Creek resident Judy Watkins. "I trust them to do what's right. I appreciate what they did."
Graham Boyd, director of the drug policy project for the American Civil Liberties Union, says the search was illegal. "You absolutely cannot bring police with guns drawn into a school," Boyd said.
Boyd said police have to have individual students suspected of drug activity, then any action taken must target those suspects. He said investigators should have called individual suspected students to the principal's office to check their bags for drugs.
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I actually think this is the earlier story, but oh well. I'm not changing them.
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“It is better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick” - Dave Barry
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