Racism and brutality reborn in Birmingham schools, says lawsuit.

[dixiegrrrrl]

The details are much much worse than the headline, actually.

Students Say Schools' Use of Mace Creates a 'Police State' in Birmingham

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (CN) - In a federal class action, students and parents accuse the Birmingham Board of Education and Police Chief of "creating a police state within the city's public high schools" by allowing police officers to "brutalize" students "with chemical weapons," including Mace, as a way to "enforce basic school discipline." Schools call police to handle even "minor incidents of childish misbehavior," and "school personnel not only watch, but sometimes even celebrate when schoolchildren are Maced," according to the complaint.

Ninety-six percent of the children in Birmingham public schools are black.

The suit claims the the defendants have placed police officers, known as School Resource Officers, in every city school.
It says the "original goal and purpose of the SRO Program was to protect the safety of the students. ... But in practice, SROs frequently became involved - both on their own initiative and at the request of school personnel - in minor incidents in which safety was not an issue. In some instances, it is the SROs themselves who threaten the safety they are charged to protect."
The students say that "SROs handle misbehavior traditionally managed by the school, such as children who utter expletives or refuse to comply with directives." But rather than protect students, the SROs are "quick to resort to pepper spray aka Mace or Freeze + P. School personnel not only watch but sometimes even celebrate when schoolchildren are Maced," the complaint states."

http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/12/03/32292.htm

[MilesColtrane]

1. Oink

[BlueIris]

2. Dear God.

Disturbing.

[Mira]

3. K&R to expose Police State Tactics

[Recursion]

4. And it feeds the utterly false "schools are in crisis" meme

School violence is at its lowest level in 50 years; the kids are doing better than their parents are.

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. I see a pattern of instilling fear in children

at school, at airports....
How many news articles have we read in the past couple of years about even kids in kindergarten led away in handcuffs for "acting out". I remember one story of a 8 y/o girl who yelled at the teacher and the cops came and got her.
The Birmingham school issue is par for the course here in the South: "public" schools get poor funding,
while whites who can afford it send their kids to private "academies.

Alabama, btw, is 71% "white"., according to 2009 Census data. ( I find that hard to believe)

But Birmingham is 74 % black.

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/01/0107000.html