LAWSUIT FILED AFTER SWAT RAIDS HIGH SCHOOL

Goose Creek, S.C. - Students as young as 14 were terrorized by police
with guns and drug-sniffing dogs in an early-morning SWAT raid at
Stratford High School that violated their rights, the American Civil
Liberties Union charged in a lawsuit filed on behalf of 20 families.

"What this school administration allowed is truly shocking," said
Graham Boyd, director of the ACLU's Drug Policy Litigation Project and
lead counsel in the lawsuit. "Officials at this school, along with law
enforcement officers, treated innocent children like hardened criminals."

The now notorious SWAT team-style raid on schoolchildren sparked
national outrage after a school videotape of the Nov. 5 incident was
broadcast on television. Weeks later, a police video of the raid
surfaced showing even more disturbing details of police handcuffing
students and holding guns to their heads while a large drug dog
sniffed and tore at the students' book bags. No drugs or weapons were
found during the sweep, and no charges were filed.

The ACLU's lawsuit charges school and police officials with violations
of the students' right to be free from unlawful search and seizure and
use of excessive force. The lawsuit seeks a court order declaring the
raids unconstitutional and blocking officials from carrying out future
raids, as well as damages on behalf of the students who were terrorized.

"I was shocked and outraged that the principal would let this happen,"
said Sharon Smalls, mother of Nathaniel Smalls, a ninth-grader who was
forced to his knees with his hands behind his head while his socks,
wallet and pockets were searched. "When I saw the video on television,
I almost lost it. It looked like something from the war, not from my
son's school."

The ACLU said such unconstitutional tactics - more appropriate for a
prison lockdown than a school - are on the rise as schools
increasingly apply the "zero tolerance" approach to perceived drug
problems in schools. But these escalating measures have no
justification in reality, since long-term studies show that student
drug use has declined in the last 10 years.

Zero tolerance policies also have a disproportionate affect on
minority students, who are frequently far more harshly disciplined
than their White counterparts, according to a Harvard University
study. A New York Times story about the raid noted that while Black
students make up less than a quarter of the 2,700 students at
Stratford High School, two-thirds of the 107 students caught up in the
sweep were Black.

"Many people in the community are concerned that the police targeted
Black students in the raid," said Denyse Williams, executive director
of the ACLU of South Carolina. "The ACLU shares that concern, and we
also believe that no student, Black or White, should ever have to go
through the kind of nightmare that our clients experienced on Nov.
5."

As 16-year-old Joshua Ody, one of the students caught up in the sweep,
put it: "I felt like I had less rights than other people that day."

The ACLU complaint names as defendants the Goose Creek Police
Department, the City of Goose Creek, Police Chief Harvey Becker,
Supervisory Police Officer Dave Aarons, the Berkeley County School
Board, Stratford High School Principal George McCrackin and 20 unknown
police officers identified only as "John Doe."

A copy of the school surveillance videotape, narrated by Principal
McCrackin, is online at http://stream.realimpact.net/rihurl.ram?file=realimpact/cms/aclu/20031205_ACLU_DrugBust.rm Read the ACLU complaint online at
http://www.aclu.org/DrugPolicy/DrugPolicy.cfm?ID=14578&c=19.

Principal resigns

On Monday, Jan. 5, Stratford High School Principal George McCrackin
resigned.

"McCrackin did the right thing by resigning," said Ethan Nadelmann,
executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. "Since when do we send
armed police officers into schools to terrorize schoolchildren?"

"Let this be a clear message to school administrators and law
enforcement that students shall not be treated as criminals in
school,' said Darrell Rogers, national director of Students for
Sensible Drug Policy.