'IT'S NOT HOW MY UNIT WOULD HAVE DONE IT'

Police Might Have Violated Own Regulations During Stratford Drug
Raid

A videotape made by the Goose Creek Police Department during last
month's raid at Stratford High School raises questions about how
police used their drug-sniffing dog that morning and whether the
department broke its own rules.

The nearly half-hour of footage shows how police and school officials
forced students to kneel on the floor, some with hands restrained
behind their backs, as a police dog passed close by, barking and
excitedly sniffing their backpacks.

Other agencies don't allow police dogs to go near children during drug
sweeps.

"We don't want people to say they were threatened by the dog," said
Cpl. Louis Reed of the Charleston Police Department.

Reed said students could stare, make catcalls or provoke a dog in
other ways. He declined to comment on the specifics of the Goose Creek
sweep, other than saying, "It's not how my unit would have done it."

On Nov. 5, Goose Creek police burst into a hall of Berkeley County's
largest high school with their guns drawn.

Images from the school's surveillance camera triggered a debate
locally and nationally about how police and schools crack down on
student drug use. Some parents and local officials support what happened.

Others, including 9th Circuit Solicitor Ralph Hoisington, said police
went overboard. On Thursday, Hoisington questioned the methods some
officers used in the sweep and asked the State Law Enforcement
Division to share the findings of its investigation with the FBI and
the S.C. attorney general.

One key piece of evidence in SLED's report is likely to be the video
recorded by a Goose Creek police officer. The department provided The
Post and Courier with a copy in response to a request under the S.C.
Freedom of Information Act.

The recording begins seconds after a team of Goose Creek officers
sealed off one of Stratford's hallways. Two officers can be seen with
their guns unholstered.

"Get on the ground! Get on the ground!" an officer yells as students
fall to the floor. "Hands on your head, hands on your head, do you
understand?"

A few minutes later, a voice on a loudspeaker says, "All right bring
the dogs down."

Goose Creek Principal George C. McCrackin is heard saying: "All right,
the dogs are coming through. Just stay still."

The videotape then shows an officer entering the hallway with a police
dog. A Goose Creek police report identifies the officer as Jeff
Parrish and the dog as Major, a Czechoslovakian shepherd.

In the tape, the dog appears to be excited, yelping and jumping up and
down, its barks echoing through the hall. Parrish leads the dog past
students kneeling or sitting on the floor. The dog's head is at the
same level of some of the students who are sitting.

At one point, the dog grabs a backpack with its mouth and shakes it.
At another time, the dog jumps briefly on its hind legs onto Parrish
as they check students huddling in an alcove. The tape shows police or
school officials examining the contents of backpacks and searching
students. No drugs were found.

Students can be seen tiring from kneeling on the floor with their
hands above their heads. After nearly a half-hour, the search ends and
an officer walks down the hallway, lecturing students:

"If you're an innocent bystander to what has transpired here today,
you can thank those people that are bringing dope into this school.
Every time we think there's dope in this school, we're going to be
coming up here to deal with it, and this is one of the ways we can
deal with it."

Echoing officials from other law enforcement agencies, Reed said
Charleston police do school sweeps much differently. They usually
involve a surprise announcement that the school is being "locked down."

A police dog then moves through hallways, sniffing lockers and other
areas. Sometimes students are told to leave a classroom for a few
minutes while a dog is brought in to sniff around. At all times,
though, the students and dog are separated, Reed said.

RAID Corps., a private company in Spartanburg that uses dogs to sniff
out drugs in schools across the state, also keeps its animals away
from children, said Jay Russell, the owner.

He said that while his dogs have never bitten any children, he doesn't
want to take any chances.

"You got to handle kids like kids, not criminals," he
said.

A federal class action lawsuit filed Friday by Stratford students and
parents includes allegations that the police dog was unruly and
appeared to be unresponsive to commands. Several students say in the
lawsuit that they were frightened by the dog when it passed by.

Goose Creek police declined to comment on the raid but did provide The
Post and Courier with the department's operating policies for its
canine team.

Those policies raise questions about whether police violated their own
guidelines.

More than 100 students were in the hallway that morning, but the
department's procedure on "illegal narcotics detection" states, "Only
after the on-scene supervisor has cleared the area of all personnel
will the canine enter and conduct an illegal narcotics detection."

The procedure also says that if the canine handler determines that the
use of a police dog would be dangerous, he or she can refuse to deploy
the dog without risk of disciplinary action.

Goose Creek's canine unit is certified by the North American Police
Work Dog Association, said Jim Watson, the group's secretary. Watson
declined to comment on the Stratford search, but he did say he knows
Parrish and the dog Major.

"Jeff is nationally certified, and he has a helluva good dog. He has
excellent control of the dog," Watson said.

He said Major is an extremely sociable dog that "loves to search for
narcotics."

Drug-sniffing dogs often have the mentality of a 3- to 7-year-old
child, and they are trained to uncover drugs like a child plays a game
of hide and seek, Watson said. When a dog "alerts," or detects a
narcotic, it's as if it has won the game.

"Why is a dog barking?" Watson said. "It's not because it wants to
bite someone. He just wants to play that game."

Some dogs are trained to sit down when they detect a narcotic, Watson
and Reed said. These are known as passive alert dogs. Others are
trained to behave in a more excited fashion. Such dogs are known as
aggressive alert canines.

"The Supreme Court has ruled you can search a person with a passive
alert dog," Reed said. "We have a passive alert dog, but we still
don't search people because of the possibility of someone saying
something happened to them or that they felt threatened."