DA SAYS GWINNETT SCHOOLS HID CRIME

Gwinnett District Attorney Danny Porter said Wednesday the county school
system's police force appears to be keeping serious crimes from being
prosecuted and should be disbanded.

In one case cited by Porter, the school system's police failed to inform
prosecutors when a North Gwinnett High School student allegedly snorted
crystal methamphetamine at his desk. In another case, school police failed
to seek criminal charges against a J.E. Richards Middle School student
accused of "possession of a large amount of marijuana."

In these cases and others, the school police --- known as school resource
officers --- allowed the cases to be handled by school administrators
rather than sending them to Porter's office for investigation and perhaps
prosecution.

Porter said he could seek criminal charges against school officials if they
intentionally failed to report crimes to his office.

"The evidence is pretty clear the school resource officers are not
forwarding the reports to the district attorney's office," Porter said.
"When an assistant principal can take a methamphetamine case and decide
that it is not going to be prosecuted, that assistant principal has stepped
outside their bounds. That's my decision; that's not theirs."

Gwinnett schools Superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks denied the system's
police force had done anything wrong.

"No one has the authority to squash crimes," Wilbanks said. "I don't
believe anyone is making any decisions to not disclose anything of a
serious nature.

"Obviously there are instances to where there is some leeway in terms of
judgment that is prudent and exercised. We have made it clear in meetings
with the district attorney as to what is reported and what isn't reported.
I don't see that there should be any issues there."

The drug cases were found in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation
of police incidents on school grounds in the 2001-02 and 2002-03 school years.

In a review of 20 drug cases, Porter found nine he determined should have
been referred to the district attorney's office for possible criminal action.

Instead, the students were taken before disciplinary panels of
administrators and punished, records show.

Porter has scheduled a meeting Friday with Gwinnett Schools Police Chief
Wendall Wayne Rikard to discuss policy and get copies of documents showing
unprosecuted serious drug crimes.

Rikard on Wednesday canceled an interview with the newspaper.

Dan Seckinger, a Gwinnett school board member, said he supports the school
system's police force. "They do an awesome job, and they do it in a fashion
that is good for a school climate," Seckinger said. "I don't deny that
there aren't mistakes made, but I can't image that there are any more
mistakes made by school resource officers than there would be in a typical
police department."

Media investigation

A Journal-Constitution/WSB-TV joint investigation found that Gwinnett
schools underreported disciplinary incidents to the state by 85 percent,
omitting 24,000 serious infractions --- violations of state and federal
law, and sex, drugs and weapons offenses --- from an annual report required
by the Georgia Department of Education.

Wilbanks has accepted responsibility for discipline reporting errors,
blaming "process problems, human errors and technology limitations." He
said the problems that caused the underreporting "have already been corrected."

Accurate reporting of student crimes and disciplinary incidents is
essential to the implementation of the federal No Child Left Behind Act of
2001, which allows parents to transfer their children out of persistently
dangerous schools, starting this fall.

In Georgia, persistently dangerous schools are likely to include campuses
at which for three consecutive years at least 1 percent of students were
charged with a felony and 4 percent were charged with misdemeanor drug
offenses.

Porter said he wonders if even more crimes at Gwinnett schools went
unreported to the proper authorities.

Until recently, Gwinnett's school resource officers looked to principals at
local schools, not a police chief, for supervision. In March, the chain of
command changed when Gwinnett schools named a top cop to bring the school
police agency more in line with independent jurisdictions.

However, the school police chief reports to an associate school superintendent.

"School police serve two masters really. That's the problem inherent in the
system," Porter said. "I have never said this before, but we are reaching
the point that we are going to have to change the school resource officer
system. School systems should not be in the business of law enforcement,
because it creates a conflict. The school resource office should be part of
the county police department . . . and work for the chief of the Gwinnett
County police."

Records show that Rikard, in February before his promotion to chief, chose
not to refer to the prosecutor's office a case of a Trickum Middle School
student who was caught with a pocketknife and a small amount of marijuana.

Other cases Porter contends his office didn't get include:

A Richards Middle School student found in "possession of a large amount of
marijuana" and who was handled administratively as a "first-offender."

A North Gwinnett High student caught with a marijuana pipe with "residue."

A North Gwinnett High student who used a $20 bill to "crush" crystal meth
on his desk and then snort it in front of classmates, leaving trace amounts
behind on a desk.

Another North Gwinnett High student who snorted crystal meth in class.

A Central Gwinnett High student caught in a school restroom selling marijuana.

"If I found out the Gwinnett County Police Department was handling cases
like this they certainly would be in for criticism," Porter said. "I would
be asking that there would be some management review of the department . .
. then the commissioners and the public would demand some accountability."