Pubdate: Fri, 06 Feb 2004
Source: News & Observer (NC)
Copyright: 2004 The News and Observer Publishing Company
Contact:  http://www.news-observer.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/304
Author: Martha Quillin
Note: Staff writer Edward G. Robinson III contributed to this report.
Note: This article is posted as an exception to MAP policies not to archive 
minor pre-trial arrest stories, and not to alter archived articles from 
what is published.  In light of the novelty of these charges, in a 
justified exception to our usual policies, this article is archived with 
the names of the accused redacted.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?225 (Students - United States)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

STUDENT DRUG ARRESTS JOLT ALAMANCE

School Sweep Hints At Easy Availability

BURLINGTON -- Gwen Manning knew something was wrong when she got home from 
work Wednesday and her son handed her a note from school. It was five pages 
long and began, "Undercover Drug Investigation Nets 49 Alamance-Burlington 
Students." Her son, Bradley, wasn't among them. But he had friends who were 
arrested and taken downtown to the sheriff's office in the systemwide 
sweep. The arrests resulted in dozens of felony charges against students in 
six of the county's seven high schools.

The busts, aimed at dealers and distributors, were on the evening news, 
with shots of parents as they posted bail and retrieved their children.

On Thursday, when residents stopped at the bank or at a diner, they 
automatically asked one another whether they had heard anything new about 
the charges. Much of their curiosity was about the arrest of [NAME 
DELETED], an Eastern High School basketball player.

[NAME DELETED], the state's all-time leading scorer, has an offer to attend 
the University of North Carolina in the fall on a full athletic 
scholarship. His toppling of the 44-year-old scoring record, accomplished 
with a baseline jump shot during a game in December, was so highly 
anticipated that play was stopped so officials could present him with a 
pair of plaques.

Efforts to reach [NAME DELETED] failed Thursday.

[NAME DELETED] achievement has been a source of pride in the community, 
otherwise known for discount shopping outlets and its history as a cradle 
of the North Carolina textile industry. But some parents and educators said 
there was too much emphasis on [NAME DELETED] arrest and not enough on what 
it means that the school superintendent had to call in three police 
departments to root out drugs.

"I was shocked," said Manning, president of the academic boosters club at 
Cummings High School, her son's school. "I was shocked that there was that 
much in the school, and by the number of kids that were involved. It blows 
my mind."

Nineteen Cummings students were charged in the raids, which took place 
simultaneously at all six campuses Wednesday morning.

At the appointed time, the schools went under general lockdown, with no 
class changes and no one allowed in the halls. Officials called students 
named in warrants to a central location, where officers picked them up. 
School staff began calling parents and directing them to the sheriff's 
office to collect their children.

There, officers had reserved space for parents to meet with bondsmen, if 
necessary, and with school officials, who could discuss possible suspensions.

They even provided refreshments.

"We tried to make it as easy as possible," said Randy Jones, spokesman for 
the Alamance County Sheriff's Office. "We know this is tough on them. It's 
tough on us, too."

Jones and others were quick to say that the arrests did not indicate that 
Burlington and Alamance County have a greater drug problem than other areas 
of the state, although Interstate 85-40 might make it easier for drugs to 
be imported.

"Frankly," he said, "this could be done statewide, and it ought to be done 
more often."

The investigation began five months ago, at the request of superintendent 
James Merrill. Officers had no information about specific students or 
particular drugs, just reports by school principals, staff and students' 
parents that drugs were being bought and used on their campuses.

Police said an investigation at Western High School failed, possibly 
because the undercover agent there was discovered.

Undercover officers in the six other schools bought mostly marijuana, but 
they also found cocaine, ecstasy, OxyContin, Dilaudid, Percocet, Valium, 
morphine, methadone and heroin. Some of the charges, Jones said, involved 
people who were students when the investigation began but had left school 
by the time they were arrested.

Sharon Wheeler, an elementary guidance counselor for the city-county 
schools and mother of two daughters who graduated from Williams High 
School, was disheartened. Six students were arrested at Williams.

"It's very sad," she said again and again, and she was grieving not just 
for [NAME DELETED], who, if convicted, could lose a future as a college 
basketball star -- but for all of the students who face possible felony 
records.

Wheeler said she had watched as some parents faced the television cameras 
and complained that their children were the victims of police entrapment.

"Their first response should not have been to blame anyone else but to show 
concern for their children," she said.

"If you really want to do something about drugs," she said, "Get out there 
and develop a relationship with a kid."
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman