DRUG DOGS SNIFFED 5-YEAR-OLDS IN WAGNER, SUIT SAYS

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a federal lawsuit against the
Wagner school board and the city's police chief claiming students, some as
young as 5 and 6 years old, were ordered to sit in their classroom desks
while drug dogs sniffed them.

According to the complaint filed this week, local and federal law
enforcement officers in May led a large German Shepherd police dog through
the Wagner Community School's classrooms after the principal announced a
"lockdown" over the loudspeaker.

The students were told to sit in their desks while dogs walked through the
aisles and sniffed the children and their desks, the lawsuit alleges. The
dogs "terrorized the students," alarmed and confused them and caused
emotional and psychological harm, according to the lawsuit.

The drug dogs returned for another search days later.

"What this school administration allowed is truly shocking," Graham Boyd,
Director of the ACLU's Drug Policy Litigation Project and lead counsel in
the case, said in a written statement. "Officials at this school, along
with law enforcement officers, seem to be pioneering a practice of treating
even the youngest students like hardened criminals."

The class-action lawsuit was filed on behalf of 17 Native American students
who attend the Wagner school. The lawsuit claims the school officials and
police violated the students' constitutional right to be free from
unreasonable searches and seizures. The group is asking for a court order
to halt any future classroom drug dog searches, and is seeking damages.

School Board President Wayne Scherr said he could not comment on the
allegations made in the complaint until he saw a copy.

"I really don't know much about it," Scherr said. "The superintendent
informed us that we might get sued."

Gene Niehus, Wagner's chief of police, said he "wasn't around there that
day, and I have no comment for the newspaper."

Neil McCaleb, the assistant secretary of Indian Affairs for the Department
of Interior, also is named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

The dogs searched students in kindergarten through high school classes. In
the complaint, a 6-year-old student said he was told to sit still because
the dog would bite if the students moved suddenly.

At one point, in a kindergarten classroom, the dog broke free from a police
officer and began to chase frightened children around the room. Several of
the students cried and one urinated involuntarily.

"German shepherds are commonly used by police to attack and apprehend
dangerous criminal suspects," said Jennifer Ring, executive director of the
Dakotas chapter of the ACLU. "The very notion of there being a drug problem
in the kindergarten is ludicrous."

The ACLU has said that Wagner, a town of 1,700 located near the Yankton
Sioux Reservation, is the site of heated racial tensions between Native
Americans and whites.

Earlier this year, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against Wagner school
officials, saying they discriminated against Native Americans by selecting
board members at-large rather than by district. Native American make up
more than 40 percent of the school district's population, but none serve on
the board, according to the lawsuit.

School officials say the at-large election system is allowed under state
law and is commonly used by other South Dakota districts, including Sioux
Falls.

According to the civil rights complaint, in the past, Wagner school
officials had invited law enforcement officers to bring the trained drug
dogs into the school's hallways to sniff student lockers. The dogs were not
allowed to get within close proximity of the students and were never used
to search students directly.

In the May searches, school officials told students to put their hands on
their desks and avoid petting or looking at the dog or making any sudden
movements. In some classrooms, the school official told the students that a
sudden movement could cause the dog to attack.

As a result of the drug dog searches, one student said in the complaint
that he would not attend Wagner Community School, planning to enroll
instead at Marty School, a school operated by the Yankton Sioux Tribe.

Minnehaha County Sheriff Mike Milstead said that his department has used
drug dogs in school searches, but the visits always have been at the
request of the school.

"We've searched a middle school and a few high schools," Milstead said.

Milstead said his officers have not searched elementary schools and have
not used the dogs to search individual students.