OK, I said I wasn't going to blog, but this story of the armed raid on a school full of surprised (and unarmed kids) is huge, and it takes place in my home state:
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...
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."
Why did the police need their guns? Evidently, they suspected that drugs would be in evidence in the school, not weapons. Why do police officers need guns to find drugs on 14-year-olds in a school building? That's just crazy.
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."
Again, why were SWAT-team tactics necessary in a school full of juveniles who are suspected of dealing drugs, rather than using weapons? Was there really any reason to assume that this would become violent? Wouldn't an undercover operation have worked as well? Or a simple search with drug dogs but no weapons?
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."
Is that assumption really reasonable inside a school building full of juveniles, when the tapes apparently showed no weapons activity?
Instapundit's got the story covered. One of the Great Man's readers, Michael Graham, had first-hand knowledge of the principal who called in the cops:
HELLO STUDENTS, AND WELCOME TO STALAG 13: Actually, it's an insult to Col. Klink and the gang to compare them with the goose-stepping George McCrackin of Stratford (S.C.) High. That's the school where the local jackboots kicked in the doors, drew their guns and threw a bunch of school kids onto the ground in a futile search for a few ounces of pot...all on videotape...
I know George McCrackin from my days at WSC in Charleston, SC. He became part of the Michael Graham Experience when he started kicking straight-A students out of school because their shirts weren't tucked in. No, I'm not exaggerating. He felt it was vital for maintaining discipline to keep all shirttails out of public view...
So when I saw the video on CNN of the gun-wielding goons terrorizing school kids, my first thought was of ol' George. Sure enough...
My favorite part of the story is Commandant McCrackin in his officer monitoring the 48 (!) surveillance cameras and signaling the police on when to move in. I can picture him sitting there, fingering his super-spy decoder ring and rehearsing the phrase “suspect in sight!”...
Michael's pretty pissed about the police force's use of weapons, as well as that aforementioned attitude that it was "reasonable" to assume that these kids would be armed:
The Goose Creek Police defend their dangerous stupidity by claiming to have monitored drug activity for four days using the school's "Big Brother" camera system. OK, if you really did see drug deals going down...why didn't you arrest the DRUGGIES, Officer Fife? The schools already violate every notion of citizenship by regularly conducting warrant-less, probable cause-less, random searches of the schools. The kids spend more time in front of surveillance cameras than women on peep-show websites. And still, for the jackboots of run the government schools, it's not enough.
Meanwhile, over at Samizdata, this is all grist for the "Beware the State" mill:
I am sorry, but some square headed jerks in a blue shirts start waving guns around a bunch of children who are just going about their business at school, and it is reported that parents are "questioning the wisdom of police tactics"? Questioning the wisdom of police tactics?...
I would be looking for some heads-on-spikes if a child of mine was subjected to that sort of treatment. How this incident has not resulted in angry mobs in the streets throwing rocks is beyond me. What does it take to really piss these people off?
So... attention all parents in Goose Creek: are you starting to have second thoughts about the wisdom of entrusting your children to state 'care' yet? Unbelievable.
Be sure to read the comments on that post, too. Very informative.
Posted by kswygert at November 9, 2003 04:45 PM