NAACP LEADERS BLAST DECISION ON SCHOOL RAID

McMaster's Ruling Deemed An Injustice

GOOSE CREEK--NAACP officials on Friday criticized state Attorney General
Henry McMaster's decision not to prosecute law enforcement officers or
school officials involved in the Stratford High School drug raid, calling it
an injustice to the students.

Lonnie Randolph Jr., president of the state conference of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said the Nov. 5
search at Berkeley County's largest high school violated students'
rights and that prosecution was in order.

He said McMaster's ruling had left people embittered. "Any other
person who invaded one of our schools and interrupted the process of
education without legal justification would have been charged with
disturbing a school," Randolph said at a news conference at the
Calvary Church of God in Christ, whose members include Stratford
students and their parents. "Any other person who had without
justification pointed a pistol at another person would have been
charged with pointing and presenting a firearm. "These are all
criminal offenses in South Carolina," he continued. "But the victims
were only kids, and mostly African-American kids. It is regrettable
that Mr. McMaster is not the attorney general for all of us." McMaster
announced July 2, after seven months of studying the case, that, while
police officers created a "dangerous tinderbox situation" when they
rushed into Stratford's main hallway with guns drawn, such tactics
were not illegal. McMaster also called the raid "grossly
inappropriate" and said the tactics were "well suited for a crack
house but not a schoolhouse." Still, he said, without criminal intent,
prosecution was not appropriate. "The matter received extensive legal
review. There was no evidence of criminal intent. Probable cause
existed to conduct the search, and the motive was lawful. That is, the
motive was to stop drug activity," McMaster spokesman Trey Walker said
Friday.

McMaster considered a host of charges, including those cited by
Randolph, but said they require proof of malice. Walker said the
charge "disturbing a school" does not apply to police officers
conducting drug searches. Police went in with guns drawn because, just
before the raid, one supervising officer told his subordinates that
"where there are drugs, there are guns, so have your weapons out."

NAACP leaders were not satisfied. "I don't think you conduct a
training exercise on someone's children," said the Rev. Joseph Darby,
a leader in the NAACP's Charleston chapter and state conference. "This
was a shakedown." The Nov. 5 raid began at 6:45 a.m. when 15 officers
entered Stratford's main hallway, ordering 130 students to the floor.
Officers handcuffed 18 students with plastic ties. School officials
opened and searched 17 book bags that police dogs reacted to. They
found no drugs, and officers made no arrests. Of the 130 students, 91
were black, 36 were white, two were Hispanic and one was Asian,
records show. Less than 25 percent of the school's population is
black. Officials said a student suspected of selling drugs and
targeted in the raid happened to come to school on an early bus from a
mostly black neighborhood and that no race was targeted. That student
was not in the hallway during the raid, records show.

"If you have an Osama bin Laden of drugs, you target that person. This
was one big net. They tried to swoop up every fish they could,"
Randolph said Friday. Parent Linda Smith said her son had just eaten
breakfast and was walking out of the cafeteria when he heard someone
yell, "Get down!" She said he thought immediately of the Columbine
High School shootings and began running. That's when a police officer
grabbed him, picked him up, slammed him to the ground and handcuffed
him, she said.

The scene was captured by school surveillance cameras and broadcast
nationwide.

Smith, a first-grade teacher in Berkeley County, said her initial
response when her son said there was a drug search at school was
"good." But her opinion changed when she watched the news that night
and saw her son being pinned down.

"This is not over yet," Smith said. She said her son, a rising senior,
remains "apprehensive, as it relates to police and being stopped. We
will do what we have to do to get him to relax."

She said school officials should have acted sooner to address drug
sales at the campus and singled out suspected students.

"It really should not have gotten that far," she said. Randolph noted
that Friday marked 136 years since the South Carolina General Assembly
ratified the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which required
states to grant all citizens equal protection and due process under
the law. South Carolina was the 28th state to approve the amendment,
which became part of the Constitution on July 28, 1868, more than two
years after Congress proposed it to the states.

Randolph said he could not call the observance an anniversary because
"we have nothing to celebrate."

Depositions in a federal civil lawsuit filed on behalf of nearly 40
students will begin later this month.