ACLU CRITICIZES HIGH SCHOOL RAID

Group Says Police Search For Drugs Conducted Illegally

GOOSE CREEK, S.C. - Police here drew some complaints and national
attention after raiding a Lowcountry high school with guns drawn in
efforts to stem a growing drug problem.

Fourteen officers cordoned off the main hallway of Stratford High
School in Goose Creek at 6:40 a.m. Wednesday to search for marijuana.
No drugs were found.

"Several officers did unholster their weapons in a tactical law
enforcement approach," said Lt. Dave Aarons of the Goose Creek Police
Department. "There was no force whatsoever. Everyone was very compliant."

However, the way the search was conducted is illegal, said Graham
Boyd, director of the drug policy project for the American Civil
Liberties Union. "You absolutely cannot bring police with guns drawn
into a school," he said.

Boyd said police must suspect individual students of drug activity,
then any action taken must target those suspects. He said
investigators should have called individual suspected students to the
principal's office to check their bags for drugs.

Security camera videotape of the raid was shown on national news
channels Friday.

Principal George McCrackin said he had talked with police about what
he called a growing drug problem at the school.

"Within the last three weeks, there's been an influx of drug
activity," he said. "I've been in this business for 34 years, and I've
never seen the amount of activity we've experienced recently."

Aarons said he watched school surveillance tapes from four days that
showed students congregating under cameras, periodically walking into
a bathroom with different students and coming out moments later.

During Wednesday's raid, officers and school employees sealed off the
main hallway. There were 107 students who happened to be in the
hallway at the time.

Police told the students to sit on the floor and put their hands out,
McCrackin said.

Officers searched only book bags that the police dog responded to, not
students, he said.

About 2,760 students attend Stratford High, the largest school in
Berkeley County and among the largest statewide. Two officers work in
the school full time.