INCIDENT AT GOOSE CREEK

Fallout Continues in Aftermath of High School Drug Raid

The fallout continues over the raid at Stratford High School in Goose
Creek, South Carolina, earlier this month. The raid, in which Goose
Creek police stormed a school hallway with guns drawn as they ordered
cowering students to the floor, cuffing those who complied too slowly,
caused a national furor as graphic videos from high school security
cameras were shown repeatedly on national network television news programs.

No drugs were found during the raid, although the high school
principal said he ordered the raid because of "increased drug
activity" he thought he saw as he peered at the school's more than 70
security cameras. The principal added that he did not know police
would conduct the raid with guns drawn.

The raid and subsequent uproar have caused rifts in Goose Creek,
largely along racial lines. Although Stratford High School is
predominantly white, the students assaulted by police during the raid
were predominantly black. The South Carolina NAACP and the ACLU's Drug
Policy Litigation Project have both conducted meetings with aggrieved
parents (mostly black) who say black students were targeted in the
raid to plot legal strategies, while some white parents and faculty
members have lined up in support of Principal George McCrackin and the
Goose Creek police.

"The search seems to have been conducted in a part of the school
frequented by African-American students who ride buses to school," the
state NAACP chapter said in a news release. "There was no reported
effort to search arriving personal vehicles, the predominant mode of
transportation for white students."

That didn't seem to concern predominantly white parents and faculty
who rallied in support of McCrackin and the raids earlier this week.
Stratford High parent Robin Stout told the Spartanburg Times she
supported the principal and the police 100%. "If I was going to place
blame, it would have to be on the kids that have been bringing drugs
to school," Stout said. "I wouldn't blame the school. I wouldn't blame
the police department."

Outsiders who traveled to Goose Creek in the wake of the raid,
including Loretta Nall of the US Marijuana Party (http://www.usmjparty.org)
and Dan Goldman of Students for Sensible Drug Policy
(http://www.ssdp.org) commented on racial tensions in South Carolina,
where issues such as the prosecution of poor black women for prenatal
drug use and the long-simmering conflict over the state's
Confederate-style flag, have long stirred the racial pot. "It's hard
to believe there is anyplace more racist than Alabama," said Nall, a
resident of that fine state, "but I found it here."

Both Goldman and Nall reported being harassed by angry white guys, but
they also reported positive meetings with students and parents as they
attempted to organize around the raid and related issues. The activist
tag-team spent a busy week, they told DRCNet. "On Monday, I began
passing out "Notice to Law Enforcement" t-shirts that have the 4th
Amendment printed on the back," said Goldman. "They were a huge hit. I
also passed out a bunch of "No More Drug War" stickers and kids
immediately began putting them on their cars and on
themselves."

Goldman and Nall also copied and made available materials like the
"Racism and the Drug War" section of Common Sense for Drug Policy's
"Drug War Facts" (http://www.drugwarfacts.org) which they passed out
to dozens of interested parents and students, as well as attending an
NAACP-sponsored meeting on the issue that same night.

"I reminded them that they have the support of hundreds, if not
thousands, of people across the country who share their outrage and
that although this is going to be a long, hard battle ahead, they can
count on SSDP and the broader drug reform community for support," said
Goldman.

By Tuesday, students were wearing the "Notice to Law Enforcement"
t-shirts to school and others were asking where they could get
theirs, Goldman said. "I am happy to report that no student got in
trouble for wearing the provocative but politically-protected attire,"
Goldman said.

Goldman got in some trouble, though -- when visiting the school campus
to hand out stickers and literature from SSDP, Drug Policy Alliance
and Flex Your Rights, two teachers first accused him of trespassing
but then offered to take him to see Principal McCrackin -- an offer
Goldman accepted with enthusiasm. McCrackin, as it so happened, had
police officers with him in his office, and neither he nor they seemed
to like the information at all. At one point McCrackin asked him who
[Flex Your Rights founder] Steven Silverman was; at another point one
of the officers told him he was being detained. (Lawsuit in the offing?)

Angry parents and "outside agitators" like Goldman and Nall are not
the only ones protesting the raids. Berkeley County Superintendent of
Schools Chester Floyd repudiated the police tactics last week. "I
don't believe these particular tactics are acceptable," he told a
public meeting. "I am sure that everyone is going to learn some
lessons from this," he said.

And two of the state's leading newspapers, the State and the
Charleston Post and Courier, have weighed in as well. "We support the
goal of a drug-free environment for the teen-agers studying in high
schools around our state," wrote a State editorialist. "We back the
parents, educators and law enforcement officers who strive each day
for an orderly, lawful and safe school environment. So there is no way
we can back last week's armed incursion into Berkeley County's
Stratford High School."

The Post and Courier, for its part, has editorialized on the topic
twice since the raid two weeks ago. "The passage of a week has failed
to quell complaints about a drug raid at Stratford High School, as
witnessed by the public response at a school board hearing," the
newspaper editorialized. "Small wonder. Most parents would be
understandably irate over having police hold their children at
gunpoint. They should be gratified to hear the Berkeley County School
District superintendent say that it won't happen again. They should
hear it from the school board as well."

Time will tell. The school district is reconsidering its policies, the
Goose Creek police department has begun an internal investigation, and
the State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) is now two weeks into its
estimated two-month investigation. And the parents, the NAACP, and the
ACLU are contemplating lawsuits.

Visit http://www.pot-tv.net/archive/shows/pottvshowse-2313.html for
online video footage of the raid.