SMH…The South strikes again. A 74-Page complaint filed against Wake County N.C. schools alleges that there is a system in place to put Black children, especially those with learning disabilities, on school suspension and when possible, in juvenile detention.
North Carolina Schools Face Complaint Of Racially Targeted Suspensions After Teen Is Needlessly Handcuffed
One of the latest cases included in the complaint is one of a teen who was handcuffed, tossed over a wall, and pepper-sprayed by a police officer…after simply cutting the line in the school cafeteria. As Huffington Post reports:
The students listed in the complaint include “T.S.”, a 15-year-old black student described as introverted and mild-mannered. His problems with school authorities began after he cut in line at lunch one day and drew the attention of a security officer, who grabbed his arm. When T.S. tried to pull away, the officer twisted his arm behind his back, pushed him over a 4-foot dividing wall, and led him out of the cafeteria in handcuffs, the complaint said.
T.S. was suspended for three days. When he returned to school, some fellow students assaulted him, knocking him to the ground and jumping on him, for reasons that aren’t explained in the complaint. The same officer who had handcuffed him three days earlier then pepper-sprayed his face. T.S. was handcuffed again, and ordered to appear in juvenile court and spend nine months on probation.
That was just one of a long string of similar occurrences in Wake County. Apparently, incidents like these are on the rise not only in North Carolina, but nationwide, as there is a steady increase of law-enforcement placement in public schools.
The presence of law-enforcement officers in schools throughout the country has grown in recent years, according to Nancy Trevino, a spokeswoman for the Dignity in Schools Campaign, a group that advocates on behalf of students who are removed from schools because of disciplinary issues.
“What we’re seeing in Wake County isn’t something that’s exclusive to North Carolina, but more of a national trend,” she said.
Activists call it the “school-to-prison pipeline,” and they attribute its growth to fears of school violence.
“It stems from the heavy saturation of the public with images of juvenile predators and high-profile school shootings that started with Columbine and has increased since then,” said Jason Langberg, an attorney with Advocates for Children’s Services, a project of Legal Aid of North Carolina.
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