At a school in Dolton, Illinois, an on campus police officer was caught on videotape beating a special education student for not having his shirt tucked. It would be great if such incidents were uncommon but they are not. The tension on many school campuses that I visit is palpable. I sometimes feel like that the staff is expecting the students to stage a rebellion at any time, so any real or perceived slight or disrespect can be met with stiff consequences, albeit not normally in the nature of a physical beating.
One of my first cases over a decade ago involved a student who would not confess to being the next Columbine-style killer. The incident arose in the weeks following the tragic incident when any "odd" special education student received extra scrutiny and were profiled as a threat. My client came close to a full emotional breakdown when the staff brought the school detective in to take over the interrogation. Although she was not physically violent, her aggressive words had a bad effect on my client's mental well-being.
Some time ago I was at a high school that had two campuses. I was at the wrong campus, and in the hall outside the main office I made a cellphone call to my client to tell her I was on my way to the other campus. The call lasted less than a minute. In that minute, however, the campus cop came bearing down on me and came within an inch of my nose screaming "don't you see the sign." [apparently there was a sign that I missed that said not cell calls]. I finished the call a second after this tirade and took a giant step backwards. I looked the campus cop square in the eye and told him: " you will not scream at me, you will not physically attempt to intimidate me and you need to back off." He responded loudly that cell calls were not allowed in the hall. I walked away at that point realizing that if he was this loud and aggressive with me, he must be significantly worse with students at school.
[I should add that this blog is not an attack on police just those individuals who are out of control. Indeed, there are some notable examples of police who reach out to support people with disabilities.]
Will this Dalton campus cop be fired or prosecuted ? That is far from certain; we live in an age where order in school is a potent justification that can prevail over reason,rule and appropriate discipline . We deserve better and schools and prosecutors need to send a clear signal that students especially those with special needs will not be objects of verbal or physical abuse. School personnel would do well to review the white paper from the ACLU for thoughtful guidance on the topic of police on campus
This story and link came to me from Daunna Minnich, one my most loyal blog readers