STORM SWIRLS AROUND DRUG SWEEP

ACLU Considers Lawsuit After Police Action at School

GOOSE CREEK--Last Wednesday started out like most any other school day
for Ray Glover, a senior at Stratford High School -- until police
officers with guns drawn stormed into the school's cafeteria at 6:45
a.m. and began barking orders at startled students.

The perplexed Glover said he had no idea what was happening, or
why.

"The police came into the cafeteria with the dogs, and then they
chased one kid down the hall," said Glover, a tall 19-year-old with
braided hair who is known by the nickname "Bolo."

"I know that some students who've never seen a gun in their lives were
really scared," he said.

Glover said an officer hustled him out of the cafeteria and into the
hallway, placed plastic handcuffs on him and made him lie on the floor
while his clothes and book bag were searched.

"He was yelling, telling me to get down," he said. "The police are
crazy nowadays. If stuff like this keeps happening, a lot of students
won't want to come back to school."

It's been nearly a week since the Goose Creek Police Department's drug
sweep sparked both widespread criticism and a state law enforcement
investigation. School officials -- tentatively, at least -- still
stand behind the drug sweep, which netted no drugs or arrests.
Questions about why police officers felt it necessary to draw their
weapons on teenagers and whether black students were unfairly targeted
have only grown more insistent.

Representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union plan to come to
Goose Creek this week to investigate whether the group should sue,
said Anjuli Verma, with the ACLU's drug policy litigation project in
Washington, D.C.

Many Stratford students are more than willing to share their
stories.

When Sam and Josh Ody stepped off the bus at Stratford High the
morning of the drug search, they headed to their usual spots -- Sam, a
senior, to the lunchroom, and junior Josh to the end of the hall by
the stairwell where his friends congregate.

Shortly after Sam sat down in the cafeteria, a coach came up and told
the students at his table to put their hands on the table. When the
students asked why, they were told it was the principal's orders.

Then a police officer came over and bound Sam's hands behind his back
with yellow restraints, took him into the hallway and told him to face
the wall as a dog smelled his bag. He watched as his binders and
folders were dumped out on the floor.

Then the principal, George McCrackin, patted him down, checked his
shoes and took out his wallet, asking him where he got the
approximately $100 he was carrying, Sam said. The student said he told
McCrackin he had just gotten paid at his job at KFC.

"The people I hang out with are not drug dealers," Sam said. "We play
basketball. We have nice clothes because we have jobs."

Down the hall, Josh was standing with his friends when he heard a
rustling and felt something hit him in the back. When he turned
around, he said, he saw a police officer standing behind him with his
gun drawn.

"He told me to get down on the ground," said Josh, who then was
instructed to put his hands behind his head and stay down.

Sam and Josh said that when the search was over, police told them that
any innocent bystanders in the crowd should blame the search on the
people bringing drugs to school. Then the students who had been bound
were released and told to go to class.

Since Wednesday, Sam and Josh's father, Nathaniel Ody, has tried to
meet with McCrackin to discuss why his sons were targeted. So far, Ody
said, he hasn't had any luck. It's not like the Ody family isn't known
at Stratford High -- four older siblings have been through the school,
and both Sam and Josh are athletes.

The brothers and other students interviewed Monday were hesitant to
say that race played a factor in the search, but they noted that
police searched the hallway where black students tend to hang out and
that most of the students involved were black males.

"They handled it the wrong way. Most people aren't used to officers
pointing guns at them," said Gerney Glover, a freshman who was sitting
near the auditorium and watched police run in with guns. "I really
didn't like starting my freshman year off like this."

What the raid accomplished, though not in the best way, was a wake-up
call, said senior Scott Rice. "If there were drugs in any school,
they're not going to be for a while now."

Chester Floyd, superintendent of Berkeley County schools, said Monday
that neither McCrackin nor any district official knew police would
come in with guns drawn.

"Had we known that the method of search had changed, the principal
would not have requested the intervention," Floyd said. "However, once
police are on campus, they are in charge."

He declined to take a position on whether police acted correctly,
saying the district would wait until the State Law Enforcement
Division ends its investigation.

"But we understand fully the concerns of parents. We have similar
concerns. I'm sorry for any student who experienced this if it was
unwarranted," he said.

Floyd said he knew of no other drug sweep in any school nationwide in
which police came in with guns at the ready. "We want to be first in a
lot of things," he said. "But I'm not sure we want to be first in this."

Goose Creek police Lt. Dave Aarons has said several of the 14 officers
who entered the school drew their guns as a matter of officer safety
because drugs often go hand-in-hand with weapons.

Stratford High is the largest school in Berkeley County and
second-largest statewide, with nearly 2,700 students. Because of its
size, it has more surveillance than other schools in the county --
about 70 cameras that have been installed within the past two years.

Some parents accuse officers of targeting black students. About 70
percent of the 107 students who happened to be in the hallway are
black. At that time in the morning, two early buses have dropped off
students from predominately black neighborhoods.

Berkeley County schools will continue to hold unannounced drug sweeps
using police dogs, Floyd said, but "the more routine kind," without
guns drawn. The sweeps occur periodically at the schools, at
principals' request. Generally, high schools hold two or three each
year, he said.

"My concern," Floyd said, "is that we get back to some normalcy."