Students Attempt to Defy Random Scanning

Many parents who oppose Mayor Bloomberg's cell phone ban probably wonder what would happen if their kids tried to defy the NYPD's random scanning patrols. Karim Lopez is an after-school coordinator at a South Bronx high school. Here is an account of events at his school last week, including his attempt to bring in observers from the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU).

And from the NYCLU press release issued today:

Students from a South Bronx high school who refused to walk through metal detectors to enter their school building were intimidated and threatened into complying with the scanning procedures last Wednesday, March 21^st.

When one student refused scanning he was taken to the side, surrounded by up to five NYPD School Safety Agents (SSAs), and threatened with not being able to join his classmates. Faced with this intimidation, the student finally went along with the procedures. Another pair of teenaged boys who refused scanning was brought into a side room and questioned, at times without any adult present, about who had put them up to it. They were threatened with a week’s suspension if they did not agree to the search. For fear of jeopardizing their college careers, the students finally gave in. They were allowed to go to their classes two hours after arriving at the school.

There will be press conference Thursday at 4:30 in front of Tweed Courthouse (DoE). Participating with the NYCLU will be Social Action Youth, Uptown Youth for Peace and Justice, Sistas and Brothas United, Friends of Brook Park, For A Better Bronx and Sistas on the Rise.

Criminalizing the Classroom -- and NYC students

The New York Civil Liberties Union has released a scathing critique of school policing practices, based on over 1,000 interviews and surveys, describing how NYC students have become criminalized as a consequence of overly aggressive policing operations, which in many instances, have led to less safety in schools rather than more.

The documented behavior of the police and School Safety Agents includes derogatory, abusive comments and conduct; intrusive searches; inappropriate sexual attention; physical abuse; and arrests of students for minor violations, or for nothing at all.

Countless armed NYPD officers along with thousands of SSAs patrol our schools every day -- the total number of whom constitute the tenth largest police force in the country -- more than Washington DC, Detroit, Baltimore and many other large cities. San Antonio has only half as many police per resident as NYC schools have per student.

Almost 100,000 students everyday are forced to endure scanners, bag-searches, and pat downs, with no probable cause -- and by personnel who are often abusive and arbitrarily confiscate their possessions, and never return them.

NYC is alone among the largest districts in the country in the manner in which police and agents are assigned to schools who are neither selected, trained or under the authority of the educators in the building, and as a result, our students are suffering.

Here is one story:

Statement of Biko Edwards, Samuel J. Tilden High School

In January of this year I was late to Chemistry Lab because I had been talking with my math teacher after math class. As I was rushing to class, Val Lewis, the Assistant Principal for Security, stopped me in the hallway. Because I was worried that I would be late to Chemistry Lab, which has strict attendance requirements, I asked Officer Lewis let me keep going to class, and I told him that I had been talking with my math teacher. Officer Lewis didn't listen to my explanation and instead told me to go to the "focus room," where we have detention.

I kept begging to go to Chemistry Lab, and Officer Lewis got angry and threatened to send me to the principal's office. Then he ordered a police officer stationed at the school, Officer Rivera, to arrest me. Officer Rivera grabbed me and slammed me against a brick door divider, which cut my face. I was bleeding. Officer Rivera then sprayed Mace in my eyes and face, then called for back-up on his radio and handcuffed me.

Eventually they took me to the hospital, where I spent about two hours handcuffed to a chair and received some treatment for my injuries. Then they took me to the local precinct and to central booking. I missed the rest of my classes that day. Overall I spent more than 28 hours in police custody. I was also suspended for four days.

If it can happen like this in school, imagine what police officers could do to you outside if something like this happened…. Why are they arresting school kids while they're in school? Tensions between students, teachers, principals, and school safety agents wouldn't be as bad if SSAs would do more listening to students and less pushing them around.

Biko Edwards is from Crown Heights and is a seventeen-year-old eleventh-grader at Samuel J. Tilden High School in Brooklyn.

An update: in a similar vein, see the new report from NESRI, the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative, "Deprived of Dignity: The Degrading Treatment and Abusive discipline in New York City And Los Angeles Public Schools."