SCHOOL RAID CAPTURING NATIONAL ATTENTION

One television show host said the sight of gun-wielding police officers in
an S.C. school would send 'chills' through parents.

A syndicated columnist said it is 'un-American.' One Web site called police
'pigs' who terrorized children when they burst into Stratford High School on
Nov. 5.

Those are just some things being said about an incident that has drawn
attention nationwide. Police officers drew their guns at the Goose Creek
school and handcuffed some students but never found any illegal drugs.

The dispute has outraged many S.C. parents and caused a flurry of discussion
and national TV stories.

Among the news shows examining the incident at Stratford High were ABC's
'Good Morning America,' the 'CBS Evening News' and NBC's 'Today Show.'

On MSNBC's 'Abrams Report,' host Dan Abrams asked, 'What were they
thinking?' when police raided Stratford High with guns drawn.

Abrams, who interviewed Berkeley County school superintendent Chester Floyd,
said the videotaped incident 'would send chills up a parent's spine: high
school students being held at gunpoint by local police. The students
themselves hadn't committed any crimes that we know of.'

During the interview, superintendent Floyd told a national television
audience, 'I've never seen anything like that. To me, it looked like
something that was staged. We had absolutely no knowledge guns would be
drawn.'

But Floyd wasn't ready to criticize the local police department, saying he
needed more information.

Syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker, who works for the Orlando Sentinel,
condemned the actions of Goose Creek police in an opinion piece run by
newspapers across the country, including the Chicago Tribune and the San
Jose Mercury News.

Parker called the incident 'a bad trip to the dark side of Oz' She said
'scaring young people to death, pointing pistols at their faces, handcuffing
them for failing to respond quickly enough, defines the phrase 'Over the
top.'

'What happened at Stratford is inexcusable, unacceptable and un-American.'

The liberal Web site www.indybay.org carried a headlined story saying 'South
Carolina, Goose Creek pigs terrorize children over alleged drug activity.'

Message boards were abuzz with comments about the incident, from police
critics and supporters.

It's the kind of attention state leaders hate to see. But unlike other
stories that have cast South Carolina in a negative light, this probably
isn't as damaging, Columbia public relations consultant Rick Silver said.

Silver said the incident could have happened in many of the nation's
communities, which are struggling to find the proper drug policies. Silver
said he doesn't see the issue hurting tourism or industrial recruitment, as
the debate over the Confederate flag did.

'You always worry that people, given some of the perception of the South and
the different stories we've had, might look for negative reinforcement. But
I don't see that this does that,' Silver said. 'This could happen anywhere.
It's more pointed at the issue of drugs and kids and law enforcement. It
only happens that it occurred in a school in South Carolina.'

Nonetheless, Gov. Mark Sanford's office said the issue doesn't help his
campaign to show South Carolina as a great place to live.

Sanford pushed to maintain and improve South Carolina's quality of life
during his gubernatorial campaign. 'Anything that would conceivably diminish
that would be something the governor would be concerned about,' spokesman
Will Folks said.