The Drug ‘War’ continues to dement US society in new and innovative ways that even a cynic such as myself find hard to credit. This is truly staggering:
Gun-toting police burst into a South Carolina high school, ordering students to lie down in hall ways as they searched for drugs. The commando-style raid has parents questioning the wisdom of police tactics. The raid occurred Wednesday at Stratford High School in Goose Creek, S.C. Surveillance video obtained by CBS Affiliate WCSC in Charleston shows the police waving their guns and searching lockers as students lie flat on their stomachs or sides. The school’s principal defends the dramatic sweep, caught on the school’s surveillance tape. Police came into the school with guns at the ready, ordered all students to lie on the floor and then handcuffed anyone who apparently didn’t comply quickly enough.
I am sorry, but some square headed jerks in 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? To quote that wit and sage Eddy Murphy, get the fuck outa here. 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.
And now class, today’s important lesson:
The state is not your friend.
Any questions?
via Catallarchy.net
Meanwhile, in every state in the Union, the state government and the local affiliate of the NEA are doing their damnedest to contrive to take away the homeschooling option by force of law. Meanwhile, accelerating school taxes will reduce the number of parents who can afford private school for their kids ever further. Thus, an increasing percentage of children will have no alternative but to attend these “public accommodations” to which the minions of the State assert the privilege of unfettered access.
What’s that? The State is not your friend? Holmes, you astound me!
So much for presumption of innocence. Busting in, guns ready…on a drug search. Are they expecting to be shot be a gram of crack or a joint?
To quote Pantera’s eternal wisdom:
“And now I’ll play the public servant,
to serve and protect by the Law and the State.
I’d bust the punks who rape, steal and murder,
and leave you be if you crossed me
and shake your hand like a man, not a God”
Thank you for covering this story. Words cannot begin to describe how shocked and outraged I am by this terrorist behavior by those who are sworn to protect us. I only hope there is a parent of a one of the child victims that is outraged enough to bring a lawsuit against these pigs.
I think I’d ask first if there were drug problems (including violence) at the school before the raid.
I mean, sure, that the pictures look bad, but I almost wish they’d do that in some of the high schools in Philadelphia.
Another thing to consider is that it’s South Carolina. Notice all the white cops and all the black kids. Hell, that video looks like it is from a surviellance camera too. Now why do you suppose that was deemed necessary in that school?
All in all, another example of how the drug policies in the US are going very, very wrong.
Yes, the thing I want to know the most is just whether or not that school had a history of violence and gun-toting students.
I do recall hearing on the “news” (sorry, can’t be more specific, was channel surfing) that there were previous instances of drug dealing at the school.
Of course, I didn’t hear if there were MANY instances, or if they were RECENT.
Although, it would seem if they have surv. cameras, they might have caught the dealers on tape, and dealt with the problem in a more *individual* manner.
But I don’t know the full story, to know if the tactic used was justified. In either case, I would want to pull my student out of that school. But perhaps not many parents would be in a position to do so (and even if the finances were available, it might be difficult to do so for a student in their final year leading to graduation).
I think back to when I was in school, and I feel immense sorrow for students today. What a hell hole of an environment to be in at a young age.
cj said: “But I don’t know the full story, to know if the tactic used was justified.”
eric and linden expressed similar sentiments. But, as Dave Masten pointed out, “[Lt. Dave Aarons], contrary to what you say, your (and your officer’s) actions indicate that you had no thought of anyone’s safety but your own. Your actions scream very loudly that you intended to kill students.” Almost certainly there was extensive drug-dealing going on at the school (my God, there’s significant drug-dealing going on at every school in this country; I mean, have any of you people been in a public school in the last decade?), but a bunch of pot and acid changing hands is a far cry from the sort of threat that would even begin to justify this sort of raid. Pointing a gun at someone is a very, very significant course of action, one not justified merely by the presence of illegal activity.
From the little research I’ve done, it seems that the school is a middle-class suburban school. The drug usage claims by the school administration are prescription drugs and marijuana. Prescription drugs are what a student was recently caught with, there was no mention of any marijuana being found previously.
Look at the cute little sheepies being led around. Baaaa! Baaaa! I’m certain the great herd can be trained to tolerate and justify this outrage just as they have all the others.
There are no red lines — and never were.
Question I have:
1. What was the probable cause to do a mass search?
2. Did the school administration know of specific individuals or cases of drug dealing?
3. Did the police and school administration target specific individuals by monitoring / searching specific suspects?
4. What evidence did the police have which led them to believe they would encounter armed opposition to this search?
5. What exactly did the warrent say in it? Did it give the police the authority to search each and every individual (probably in the hundreds) in this facility, including visitors?
6. What did the police and school administration tell a judge to get a judge to give them a mass search warrent?
7. When will we see the first law suit against the police and school administration for “unreasonable search and seizure”?
Nothing like good ole’ collective punishment and guilt. I hope the prat who organised this travesty gets sued within an inch of his bloody life.
You think the Principal has gone a bit power-crazed?
Setting aside the absurd policy of illegality that makes the drug war possible by encouraging criminals to trade in drugs, there can never be sufficient justification for this type of police action.
This type of behavior endangers the lives of many completely innocent people who have little choice but to be around criminals. What of their rights, their liberty?
The police may have no choice but to enforce (often ridiculous) laws but they do have a choice about methods. A couple of detectives could probably have apprehended, quite peacably, any offenders after a brief, and far less expenseive investigatioon.
To put this even more into perspective, I would draw your attentions to the line in the CBS article:
This school is not some intercity warzone filled with alienated Crips and Bloods. The guy running the school sounds like a certifiable wacko however, and I would urge you all to watch the video footage from the CBS site… check out that weird looking Police spokesman with the square head (literally)… the guys looks like he is a frustrated jarhead rather than a cop. Scary.
And, no drugs were found!
I think I stand corrected. Instapundit has a follow up on this that basically claims the Principal is a nut-case. (I always wonder though, how such nut-cases manage to get those jobs in the first place).
Anyway, if that is true, there maybe ‘regime change’ in store for that school.
(I always wonder though, how such nut-cases manage to get those jobs in the first place) – eric
eric, you would be surprised the bedfellows that the Left in America has embraced in their attempt to keep the public from figuring out that the NEA and the Dept. of Education ran the US school system into the ground, and then rented a backhoe to start digging. Anybody who says they can improve test scores and keep incompetent union teachers working gets a job.
A scarier thought is that this nutcase is probably getting 150-200K of tax payer money, for playing fascist.
Have a look at the footage here. The point I found odd was that the principal, from his colossal CCTV array, MUST have seen the targeted dealers leave the building, yet failed to tell the police about it.
Most police departments have very strict rules about drawing one’s gun. It is considered a “use of force”, and something that you only do if the situation justifies it. For instance, if there is a direct, clear and present danger to yourself/another officer/ a civilian, or if there is justifiable cause to believe that you might have to use it IMMEDIATELY, than most departments will have no problem in drawing a weapon.
In this case, we have a bunch of cops pulling guns…why? There is no justifiable cause that I can see from the evidence, other than the desire for a bunch of incompetents to appear tough before schoolchildren. The officers involved probably violated their own department’s regs on use of force, and should be up on charges.
Sidebar: Has anyone here thought of what would have happened if one of those officers with their guns out at “low port” had tripped and let one fly? Between the concrete floor and the lockers, we’re talking serious ricochet potential.
I went to high school in Ohio from 85 to 89. There was a remarkable amount of pot in circulation (even more in the 70s I was told. . . ) and more exotic substances could also be attained. This was an upper-middle class, rather white, suburban school where the vast majority went on to college (and law school, in my case).
In any event, I have serious doubt that there’s any *more* drugs floating around your typical high school nowadays, so the suggestion that these jackbooted tactics are needed now more than ever is laughable. Hell, in my high school you could smoke cigarettes if you wanted in designated areas outside. People would call the cops if you tried to do that nowadays.
Also, about the cameras – I don’t think the presence of cameras is any indication that the school has had problems in the past. Most schools are wired for 24/7 surveillance nowaday. Schools more and more resemble minimum-security prisions than anything else.
I wrote this before I heard of this astounding event which makes my phrase “visiting cops” much more ominous:
Consider the effect of the Drug War on high school kids. This is their main dose of blatantly “government imposed” special education, visiting cops included. Despite programs like DARE causing drug use to in fact go up, worse is that when kids figure out that they were LIED to about the dangers of marijuana (or magic mushroom camping trips) which are in simple fact statistically minuscule compared to alcohol use, they quickly adopt an attitude that government and even adults in general are just jerks who don’t deserve their respect or trust. They have to figure out how to take these fully available drugs safely on their own since they were not taught that, and it’s hard to be responsible when such drugs are not regulated by the FDA and they mistrust legitimate warnings about narcotics too. They have to do this with alcohol too, due to the drinking age. This tainted educational effect is vastly amplified when they get around to dropping acid under such circumstances, under the life-changing influence of an “expanded consciousness.” Prohibition doesn’t work at all for LSD which is distributed on tiny squares of paper. Just like abortion, prohibition of it does more harm than good, no matter how anti-drug soccer mom’s are.
Any surprise thus that the vast majority of anti Drug War activists are also blanket anti Bush and anti War on Terror? They conspiratorially blame “the government,” not understanding that we really do have representational government and that it was THEIR soccer mom who voted for the “tough on drugs” politician. If reminded of this they blame mom’s voting record on anti-drug propaganda, including the commercials linking drug profits (caused by prohibition not drug use which prohibition does not stop at all) to terrorism.
“Prohibition goes beyond the bonds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes.” – Abraham Lincoln
Link to Law Enforcement Against Prohibition:
http://www.leap.cc/about/index.htm
“heads on spikes”? Again!
Is this a chronic problem…
Frankly far too many people ascribe strange reasons as to why some things happen. I’ve found that most things can be simply explained by a combination of sloth, stupidity and ignorance.
The case in point is that it would have been much safer, cleaner and quicker to continue isolating the students in their current classrooms. Do a sweep of the hall lockers and then, one by one, do a search of the students (if needed).
But that would assume that the officers in question had a couple brain cells to rub together.
ed
The case in point is that it would have been much safer, cleaner and quicker to continue isolating the students in their current classrooms. Do a sweep of the hall lockers and then, one by one, do a search of the students (if needed).
I suppose this is better than the armed invasion approach, but it seems like a lockdown and random search are still inappropriate tactics in any society that claims to be free.
Isn’t anyone going to defend this police action? Don’t any conservatives read this weblog? I thought the conservatives were in favor of taking a hard line against drugs? Is it just the photo that’s scaring people from defending this?
I don’t mean this to sound like a partisan post, I’m just a little surprised that no one is defending this. If you truly want a drug free America, aren’t you willing to argue for these policies?
I grew up in liberal household and my parents were always anti-police, especially my mom, but I got used to the fact that my folks were way to the left of most of America, and I got used to the fact that most of America is pretty conservative and pretty mcuh pro-police. And I’ve got used to seeing some fairly incredible things defended, like the Rodney King beating.
So why is no one defending this police action? It seems within the lines established by hundreds of previous discussions and court precedents regarding the police.
In the US today there been a war declared on terror. Now why dont we fight against these terrorists that come into a school full of innocent children, waving guns and forcing innocent children onto the ground? there was no probable cause and no hard evidence to justify their actions. NO DRUGS WERE FOUND!!! Can we not compare these so called law enforcers to those who bomb our embassies, and infringe on our civil and constitutional rights?
i dont see wat the big fuckin deal is if someone does drugs its there problem not anyone elses they know the consequences (dying) so even if there was drugs in the school fuck it let them die if their dumb enough to b doin that shit. PS my sister is a drug addict i know it hurts to see someone kill themselves