A recent story arc on Boston Public involved a girl who got all twitterpated with a Narc, and with the fall-out from their “relationship.” During the show it was revealed that not even the teachers knew the guy was a Narc.
I’m curious if there really are Narcs working in high schools, or if this all just a fiction device. In high school, of course, we all heard rumors, and there were drug busts left and right, but I never heard conclusive proof that there were narcs working there. (BTW, local police handled all of the drug busts. Whether they did this in connection with a Narc I don’t know).
And if there are Narcs, are they expected to turn in homework and whatnot (to keep the teachers unaware of their secret)?
Dr. Possum’s Rx: 2 seasons of “Twentyone Jump Street,” applied to the afflicted area.
We had 1 narc and 1 general undercover at my high school. Yes, they had to do schoolwork, etc., but they were not exactly supposed to be top-botch students. Besides, HS is easier than flying a kite.
In a town near where I grew up, the high school planted narc was beaten, stripped, painted blue and stuffed into a locker. Damn near killed him. If I were the hating kind, I’d say good riddance…
I don’t know whether they inform the teachers, but it seems that they would have to inform SOMEBODY in the administration, otherwise, you’d have somebody attending school under falsified documentation, which, I would presume, is against the law.
Our high school had a narc playing janitor one year. Busted a dozen or so people, most for selling him pot after he begged and pleaded for weeks for them to do so (including one girl who had never used drugs in her life, but who felt so bad for this guy’s pleading that she got a friend to find her a joint, which she then sold to the narc).
It is done fairly often, and can be quite successful. My department has never done it, but another nearby agency did so.
They don’t use kids: they use fully-commissioned police officers who just look young enough to pass as teenagers.
And no, the school administration is usually not informed. That could put the officer at risk, and it is always possible that school employees could be involved in dealing. I’m not aware of any laws against “attending school under falsified documentation”. Even if there were, law enforcement is not subject to such laws during an investigation.
When I was doing a stint at teaching a couple of years ago, early on in the school year there was a rumor about a “narc” on campus. At a staff meeting the principal said he could not “comment on the subject,” which in all of the teachers’ minds pretty much confirmed it.
About February, the police department announced a “major drug bust” and arrested three students and took in about five pounds of grass and took possession of “a number of pieces of drug paraphanilia”.
Some of my regular druggie students said that they had the guy spotted from the beginning and were amazed that even this guy could only find five pounds of grass in the school. The people who did get busted were not major users so they all got probation and were back in school in no time. They did, however, see a rise in their in-school popularity.
One of my friends, who is a high school teacher, has undercover police at his school.
About a week before school ended here last year, quite a few kids were busted at his school. Some adult employees (not teachers) were arrested too.
Many students in high school ARE adults and are probably within a year or two of the age of a rookie cop. Here public school attendance is only cut off at age 21. A kid held back a grade or two may be 20 and still in school. I certainly remember some people still in high school at that age when I was going. And most cities begin to hire police as young as 19-21.
Here’s a link to a book about the murder of undercover officer George Raffield. He was working undercover at a high school in suburban Dallas when he was killed by a group of drug-dealing students. I went to school with his older sister from 1st grade through high school.
So, to answer your question - yes, high school narcs are real.
“Here were teenagers living in a turbulent world of drugs, alienation, and, in one case, Satanic worship. Here was a steady stream of crank and pot being poured straight into the heart of a good and decent town.”
High School Confidential meets the Judas Priest witch hunt meets Reefer Madness.
There was one in the high school in my town, Altoona PA. They got a pretty good looking female 20 something pi…err cop to pose as a student. She made friends with a bunch of horny teenage boys and got them to get her drugs and introduce her to dealers. Not to condone drug use or anything, but most 15-17 year old boys will do just about anything to get into a reasonably good looking girls pants, so IMHO this was entrapment.
There was an article in either Rolling Stone or Playboy (I didn’t read it, so I can’t remember which) that detailed the whole thing.
So is there a way of finding out whether a student is a narc or not? Or, since just having to ask if someone’s a cop is an urban legend, is there really no way to find out?
