High School..drugs..cops...on the floor!

The BBQ Pit
81

I’m with spooje–there’s something we’re missing. On the face of it, yep, horrible, a huge overreaction, what is the world coming to, etc. etc.

But…what sort of neighborhood is this school in? Were there gangs? Were there reports of guns? Was there supposed to be an organized, armed core of students or outsiders that they KNEW would be in THAT corridor at THAT time? I want to hear more from the law enforcement side; the local DA was on TV this morning, pointing out that he too was horrified at the footage but that perhaps the prelude was more complicated than fascists vs. innocent kids. (The Rodney King Effect, I call it).

I went to HS from 1978-82. Few people did drugs but everybody knew where the dealers were. There was no particular social pressure in most circles to do them and everything was very discreet. And while I knew a few kids with small knives, nobody would have dreamed of bringing them into school, let alone guns. If you couldn’t settle a school fight with fists alone you were a damn coward. And no searches or dogs (of course, we had no lockers, so that helped).

82

Well what IS the law enforcement point of view?

Anyone have any quotes form their end?

As for spooje:

They weren’t busting into the local prison, they busted in, guns drawn, with police attack dogs into a SCHOOL with KIDS. NOT hardened criminals.

You just don’t do that!

As I mentioned before, what would have heppenend if one kid had panicked and done somethign stupid (as KIDS tend to do), and ran away, or tried to fight back? Woudl he have been shot? Beaten into submission?

I said it before, and I’ll say it again, if that were my kid, being treated like that, a day in jail would be worth the satisfaction of punching that cop’s face in.

83

Because you smell Ashcroft in everything you don’t like…?

You know, I entered this thread thinking, hey maybe this is one thread where I can agree with Reeder. Surely, he’s not going to rant about the Bush administration for this one since it was local cops and not feds. Alas, it couldn’t be.

84

and

At my middle class, suburban highschool (which I no longer go to, thank god…for reasons other than this) (where I never heard of anyone using anything other than pot or X) there were drug sniffing dogs sniffing the parking lot. The administration had warned the student body that there would be multiple drug searches over a 90 day period. In this one (the only one I remember) No cars were opened, checked, suspected, except…
** a faculty members!**
He was eventually cleared of all charges, but it ruined his career at that school, and probably many others.

thanks, War on Drugs and overzealous principal.

Good for a whole new thread, but I just had to say, aren’t some parents just sad.

85

Its true, I saw it on TV! :rolleyes:

86

I saw the film this morning and all I can say is that if my child was a student there, she would never set foot in that school again. Any Principal that would allow this to happen is out of his freaking skull, and those asshole bullies down at the police department need to be seriously reined in and have their ears slapped back for pulling this shit. These cops didn’t just have their weapons drawn, they were scanning the students lying on the floor, putting every single one’s life in danger.
I am generally more of a law 'n order type of guy than not, but this was beyond absurd. Indeed, the phrase “jack-booted thugs” rapidly springs to mind. There is absolutely no excuse for this totally fucking outrageous behavior, and it cannot ever be allowed to happen again. This kind of tactic stinks to high heaven of the Third Reich, and it will be interesting to see what the State Police investigation turns up.

87

“I would be very interested in finding out why the administrators and the city felt that behaving like Nazis was in the best interest of all concerned.”

They don’t, they are acting ultimately in their own best interests. The reason they do it is because we, as a society, let them. Just like the Nazis.

88

Something from The Cannabis Times! Oddly enough, it gives a few more details: raid happened last week. One BS lawsuit already filed by a girl who wasn’t there. And there was a specific threat by a student who said he’d bring a gun.

None of which excuses the excesses, but provides a little more context.

89

I’ve only seen a video clip one time. But, IMO, at least one cop looked like he needs less coffee, and some empathy training with a gun pointed at him by a seemingly overexcited lunatic.

Society? But, wait, we’re all here condemning it or providing context to make it fair. I’ve already taken one cheap shot at the cops.

90

Er, two. Maybe three?

Some of those guys do a really good job in stress conditions not unlike war. The guy I saw waving the gun was not one of them. I’m not going to call more than one cop jackbooted based on what I’ve seen – which isn’t much.

91

You DON’T see a problem? WTF! For one thing, do I need to dig up my copy of the Constitution of the United States and start quoting it? There must be SOMETHING in there that could be applied here. :wink: And for another, how does posessing any quantity of dried ground up plant matter warrant cops barging in with guns? Where’s the morality in that? What if someone got hurt?

I agree with Kinthalis that we should let go of the Ashcroft thing. I’ve had people take an afterthought from one of my Pit rants and blow it out of proportion. Made me look like a total asshole, and that’s no fun.

I’m not one to trust any politician, but also not interested in wasting my day tracking down cites about them (notice I rarely post on political threads).

92

Seen more tape…

More guns. With that many cops, how much safety did they really gain by unholstering a bunch of firearms in a HS on one tip that there might be a weapon somewhere, maybe?

Just having a couple guys standing back with their hands on guns at their hips is more than enough. That, the uniforms, and the screaming should do it. This is a HS, not a military operation. Too much “tactical” not enough “practical.” History Channel, you owe me.

I really don’t understand why those cops were pointing those guns the way they were. Deadly force is only to be employed when there is a serious threat. I hope pulling guns isn’t SOP now. They mostly kept the barrels pointed down. Scary.

93

To the people in this thread not seeing the big deal here:

Are you all seriously saying raiding a high school as if it was a crackhouse is ok? You would really have zero problem with this happening at your (hypothetical) kid’s high school?

You only have to allow something once to have it become SOP. If there’s no stink made about this, and everyone ignores or okay’s it, why wouldn’t it eventually become SOP in our schools where drugs are suspect? Anything to fight the War on Drugs, after all. Zero Tolerance. Just Say No to the Reefer Madness!

We already have armed guards and metal detectors, so why not go this extra step if “the people” don’t raise a stink about it.

You know, that exact attitude is why we get our civil rights taken away and our civil liberties stomped on. We ask them to. We practically beg them to. As long as we’ll be safe. As if you could EVER possibly be entirely “safe”, whatever the hell that is anyways. When they go just one step further, people say “Well, as long as we’re safe.” How the hell are you safe when you have cops stormtrooping your kid’s high school with drawn guns?

If you blatantly allow it in your kid’s high school, how long before you are dealing with this in your workplace? Do you think the threat of cops raiding your workplace like a high-lvl drug bust would be a pleasant work environment? Do you think that’s the kind of school environment kids feel good about learning in?

I sure as hell don’t, so if you don’t mind, I’ll holler about this issue just that much louder, for you folks who haven’t shuddered at the “1984”-ish ness of this. I’m sure you can find alot of countries to live in that have police raids anytime, anywhere for any number of reasons to live in. I’d like to see America not become one of those countries, if it’s all the same to you.

Call me paranoid if you will, and I’ll admit at least partially, I might be. But I don’t think I’m entirely paranoid to look at alot of different really touchy possibly civil rights-stomping going on in this country atm and not really like the direction it seems to be heading.

(If it turns out I am paranoid, than so be it. I’d MUCH prefer being the crazy loon with the sandwich board hollering about Government Conspiracy on the street corner, than being correct in the end. Crazy loon I can live with, I’m halfway there already :wink: )

94

In all honesty, I was in Goose Creek a few weeks ago and this is what the area is like. It is a small, middle-class, suburban city. You can traverse the city in less than ten minutes traveling in any direction. They may have a building as large as 4 stories in the city. While it is a few minutes from North Charleston, which has a high crime rate, most of the residents have moved there because of the low crime rate. I really belive that the police officers and the principal involved were just trying to make themselves seem more important than they actually are.

95

Goose Creek isn’t quite your typical small town:

written Aug, 2002

96

Here’s the big deal: unarmed students, doing nothing threatening, in a place where they had no reason to expect walking into the middle of a raid had guns pointed at their heads when they, in their shock and confusion, didn’t quite respond as quickly as the jumpy men with the guns wanted them to.

Because, you know, when you walk out of algebra, with your mind on the geography quiz that you forgot to study for next period and how you’re glad that today is pizza day because you’re really hungry and can’t wait for lunchtime, you’re gonna be the most responsive little critter on the planet when someone is screaming in your face with a gun drawn. You’re not going to be scared or shocked or boggled one tiny bit.

The other big deal: The principal called cops because he saw students who tended to huddle away from the security cameras and enter and exit the bathroom with unusual frequency. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to have been any investigation into just who the students in question were. Instead of checking into that, the presumption of innocence was suspended enough to justify treating every student in the school as a potentially armed and dangerous felon. Kids who were unquestionably innocent of any undoing, kids who had been victimized by the drug dealing kids, kids who never had so much as a detention were all put under the gun.

Imagine that there was a possibility that some people in a company were guilty of some crime. Would you find it acceptable that police came in with no idea of which of the employees it might be, but were just going to raid with guns drawn at every employee in order to try to root out the few who might be criminals? How about at a church? A rock concert?

In what other venue might that kind of overbroad, overreaching, overly (and overtly) violent reaction and piss poor policing be acceptable?

97

Why don’t you go get your copy of the Constitution and look it up. It’s gonna take a while, 'cause what you’re looking for ain’t there. If the cops have reliable info that a crime is occuring anywhere in their jurisdiction, then they can apply for a search warrant, and if signed, bust in and search. If they have ANY qualms about their personal safety, then their guns will be drawn.

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but crimes are sometimes committed on schools grounds. Crimes like drug possesion, selling, assault and battery, sexual assault, and even murder. Unfortunately, it’s not unheard of here in Los Angeles county. Maybe you live in a nicer place.

Hey, maybe there have been crimes commited at THIS school in the past! Do you know differently?

Neither do I. I don’t know what info the cops had or who they got it from. But I can imagine plenty scenarios where cops being at the school with their guns drawn would be appropriate. Until I get better info, I ain’t gonna condem the police. I think that’s a little premature.

98

Care to guess why there are metal detectors and armed guards?? It’s because they are needed. Do you think any school would go to that kind of expense if were not called for?

In my area, they have metal detectors in response to students bring weapons to school. In that past 6 months, there have been no less than 3 students shot on school grounds, by other kids, at one high school. And that was in a nice suburban neighborhood.

I think you are minimizing the kind of trouble students can cause.

99

Okay, I will. But did the cops even have a warrant in this case? If so, how did they get it without investigating any specific individuals? Just how crooked is the law enforcement?

You’re mixing apples and oranges here. Assault, battery, and murder are wrong, and if the story was about any of those, it would be a different matter. But it’s not, it’s about kids suspected of posession of marijuana. Just because something is illegal doesn’t mean it can cause anybody harm, and doesn’t mean it should be reacted to with such force.

Yes, yes, plenty of situations, but a little bit of weed hardly qualifies. Even worse that they didn’t have any specific suspects and decided to raid everybody.

Look at the results of the survey on the news story quoted in the OP. 68% of those who voted said this situation has gone too far. The likes of you are in the minority.

100

What I think is that our schoolchildren shouldn’t be treated like prisoners on a lockdown or the residents of your local crackhouse. I refuse to believe that can be considered a conducive environment to learning, and I defy you to show me differently.

But, by all means, as long as it’s in the name of making people safer. :rolleyes:

Sorry, I think Ben Franklin had it right all alongwhen he said “He that’s secure is not safe.” and “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Or, if you prefer, “Necessity never made a good bargain.”