DRUG STING PRAISED, QUESTIONED

Surprise was the first reaction students had at Federal Way's Todd
Beamer High School after hearing that two police officers had walked
among them as peers for seven months while building evidence for a
drug and gun sales sting.

For many, the second reaction was relief.

Students of all grade levels said they appreciated having two Federal
Way police officers -- a 28-year-old woman and a 33-year-old man --
taking action against what many perceived to be a serious drug
problem in their school.

"I've seen it bad," said 17-year-old Justin Eley of the amount of
drugs trafficked. "I'd prefer there to be undercover cops here. It
makes me feel safe to know there's someone watching over us."

Students interviewed Friday were frank about the presence of
marijuana, Ecstasy, cocaine and prescription medications in their
school. They're there and openly discussed and gloated about in
hallways and around lunch tables, students said.

"You see people coming to class all high," said Alyssa Burrington, a
15-year-old freshman. "I had a friend expelled (for selling Ecstasy)."

Thursday's sting led to felony charges -- of selling drugs, weapons
or both -- against 12 students in three of Federal Way's high
schools. One adult in his 20s was charged.

Students at Todd Beamer High said there were no disturbances in their
daily activities while the arrests, some of which happened on school
grounds, took place.

Some were disturbed to know, however, that seven months had gone by
without their being notified of undercover officers in their school.
Teachers were in the dark, too.

"They didn't tell anyone. They don't actually go to our school, and
they go to classes and socialize with us," said Keegan Claxton, a
15-year-old freshman. "It's a little creepy."

Claxton was skeptical of the good that could come from such
operations and whether it outweighed making students uneasy. Serious
drug dealers are on the streets, not in the schools, he said, adding
that targeting student dealers doesn't get to the source of the problem.

School district officials in Los Angeles, where undercover police
work in schools was pioneered in the 1970s, share his criticisms.

For 30 years, the Los Angeles Police Department conducted undercover
operations in schools. Many amounted to small marijuana arrests, not
big drug trafficker takedowns. Operations were canceled in 2005
after school officials said there was no evidence that undercover
cops reduced the number of students using drugs or made them less
available.

"In every high school, drugs are a big problem," said Robin
Middleton, an 18-year-old Todd Beamer senior who's in favor of having
undercover officers in school as long as they remove drug dealers.
Middleton also knows someone who had come to class high and been
expelled.

Many students said it would be easier if school officials talked to
them to learn how drugs moved through the school.

A common place where drugs are dealt is the student parking lot,
students said. Only 100 yards from the school's entrance, students
get high, smoke cigarettes and sell drugs, they said. It's also a
place where they go to skip class.

Inside the school, an area downstairs near a janitor's closet is
popular. Eley said he's seen students drinking there and once saw two
passing pills.

"That's a trouble area," he said, "Kids just hang out and do a bunch
of weird stuff. It's not really supervised."

Some dealers are even bolder. Charging papers filed against those
arrested in Thursday's sting tell of a student in Federal Way High
School selling drugs in class while teachers gave
instruction.

An undercover officer asked the student if he could "buy some smoke."
The student told him to sit near him during class and then proceeded
to break up $5 worth of marijuana behind a baseball cap in what the
report described as "a poor attempt to conceal the drug transaction."

Many students watched, the report said.

Such a story doesn't surprise Todd Beamer junior Seth Miller. Like
many of his peers, Miller, 16, is aware of the drug problem at his
school, but he's torn about whether undercover police are needed to
solve it. "It's hard to wrap my head around it," he said. "I'll
definitely be thinking about it more."