ARMED AND DANGEROUS

There's the occasional overuse of police power. Then there's the rare,
outrageous abuse of police power.

Then there's what police did Wednesday at Stratford High School in
Goose Creek, S.C. - an unforgivable insult to every ideal Americans
hold dear. In perhaps the most out-of-control case of reefer madness
ever visited upon authorities in this otherwise free nation, a gaggle
of some 14 police officers - guns drawn - commandeered the halls at
Stratford High for a random, warrantless, senseless mass search for
drugs.

They and their drug-sniffing dog found only suspicious traces, no
drugs. But in the process of improving on Gestapo tactics, they
managed to plunge law enforcement and education to new lows.

Forget the obvious question of whether the students' rights were
violated. We'll let the lawyers tackle that one. And for once, we wish
them godspeed.

Rather, let's talk about what these frightening tactics
say.

They say that our children are all presumed guilty. That law
enforcement can do whatever it wants to search for drugs. That fishing
with a net, rather than a hook, is a good way to catch drug dealers.
That lazy police work can carry the day. And that our children have
more to fear from police than from the bad guys.

This raid was un-American. We do not want to live in a country in
which storm troopers are liable to swoop down on us at any time to
demand we prove our innocence.

The worst part of this escapade is that officers came with guns drawn
while ordering students to hit the floor. There was absolutely no call
for that.

Principal George McCrackin, who reportedly helped plan the raid with
police, still doesn't get it. Even as the raid began to attract
international attention and intense parental outrage, McCrackin
insisted the armed raid was merely "an inconvenience" and that "I
think there's a valuable experience there."

The only valuable experience - for which the students paid dearly -
will be realized if governments and law enforcement agencies across
the country hold this up as the most extreme example in memory of how
not to combat drug dealers.