Pubdate: Thu, 13 Nov 2003
Source: Sun News (Myrtle Beach, SC)
Copyright: 2003 Sun Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/sunnews/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/987
Note: apparent 150 word limit on LTEs
Author: Pamela Hamilton, The Associated Press

TOWN SPLIT ON DRUG SWEEP AT SCHOOL

GOOSE CREEK - This small community just a few miles north of Charleston is 
split on whether police went too far last week when they conducted a 
high-school drug sweep with their weapons drawn.

More than 100 Stratford High School students were ordered to crouch in a 
hallway, some restrained with plastic handcuffs, while 14 officers and a 
drug dog searched for drugs. None were found, and no drug arrests were made.

Some parents are angry over the treatment of their children - captured on 
surveillance video and seen repeatedly on national TV news programs. 
Others, including some students and the school principal, say the Nov. 5 
sweep was a necessary evil to combat a drug problem at the school.

The aggressiveness of the officers has brought scrutiny from several civil 
rights groups, including the National Association for the Advancement of 
Colored People, which says black students were targeted in the search. 
State police and other outside agencies have been asked to investigate.

"I personally think it went too far," said 17-year-old Jeff Carver, one of 
the students in the hallway while police searched book bags. "They didn't 
have to point guns and things. They didn't even find nothing."

Carver, who stood up during the raid after he heard a dog barking, was sent 
to the principal's office for disobeying orders and suspended for three 
days. A dozen students who police say disobeyed orders were restrained.

"I'm angry," parent Sharon Smalls said at a Berkeley County school board 
meeting Tuesday. "My child was slammed to the ground with a gun to his 
head. Someone has to take responsibility."

Two arrests for drug distribution have been made at the school so far this 
academic year. And while no drugs were found, a dog reacted to narcotics 
residue in some book bags.

Principal George McCrackin has said he asked police to come to the school 
to curb an "influx of drug activity."

"I think it was awesome," said Kristal Totolo, one of about 2,600 students 
who was not in the hallway during the raid. "I feel 10 times safer knowing 
that the principal cares about it. He's not letting it go."

Robin Stout says she is among the group of parents who support the 
principal 100 percent. Stout thinks drug use has increased at the school 
from the time her son graduated in 1997 to this year, when her daughter 
began ninth grade.

The way the raid was conducted was decided by Goose Creek police, said city 
spokeswoman Casey Fletcher. "This was a one-time specific operation to 
address a specific documented problem," she said. "Any time that there is 
drug activity going on, the police officers believe that there's a 
reasonable expectation that there may be a threat of violence."

Because of the public criticism of the raid, the State Law Enforcement 
Division is investigating it. The police department also is doing an 
internal review.

Two representatives from the American Civil Liberties Union are talking to 
parents and students, and the NAACP is looking into complaints that blacks 
were targeted.

Less than a quarter of the school's students are black, but most of the 
kids in the hallway during the sweep were black.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman