Student suspended for suspicion...No proof, just suspicion.

Pubdate: Wed, 04 Feb 2004
Source: Narragansett Times (RI)
Author: Jessica Hurst
Contact: mobrien@ricentral.com

Dogs sniff drugs at NHS

NARRAGANSETT - Who let the dogs out?

Last Friday morning marked the first random search by police canines for drugs at Narragansett High School, leading to four locker searches and one student suspension.

No actual contraband was found and no arrests were made, said Narragansett Police Chief J. David Smith in a telephone interview Monday morning.

"The dogs did indicate that four separate locations in the school were positive for scent," he added.

Two scent-positive locations in the junior hallway and two in the senior hallway were searched by administration, and while no drugs were found, in one locker, "the smell [of mar1juana] was overwhelming," said Smith.

School administrators suspended the locker's owner for three days.

The scent in the student's locker was an indication of "residual use," of mar1juana, said Superintendent Pia Durkin in a telephone interview Monday. And part of the drug search project is to confront "the addiction issue before it becomes a legal issue," she said.

After school Monday, junior Sean Hames, 17, said he was surprised that a student could be suspended from school for something that could have happened outside of school.

And, he said, "He could have just been in a car full of students smoking weed," and not necessarily using drugs himself.

He called the drug searches "an invasion of privacy," and felt they were being used as a scare tactic.

Smith calls the searches a deterrent. "We feel it sends a very strong message."

At meetings last December among school and police officials, a persistent "sub-culture" of drug use was identified, and on December 17 Smith presented the canine searches to the school committee.

An informational letter was sent home to parents, and students were informed of the procedure basics in advance of last Friday's search.

The information helped to reduce anxiety, said Durkin.

The advance information may have also been a heads-up to potential offenders, said Narragansett High School junior Holly Bezak, 17, outside the high school Monday.

"I don't think they should have told students about it ahead of time, because everybody knew not to leave anything in their locker," she said.

Neither she nor junior Kerrie Lemoi, 16, think the drug presence on campus is serious enough to warrant the searches.

"It's definitely not necessary," said Lemoi. But they also aren't concerned about the searches.

"Nobody really cares," said Lemoi of the student sentiment. "Every school has it." Bezak said while the searches didn't bother her, "Maybe it's because I don't have anything to worry about."

John Dossantos, 16, a sophomore, said the searches are "Wack. They don't search Providence, but they search little Narragansett."

During Friday's search, three dogs and their handlers - K-9s from the Westerly Police Department and the Rhode Island State Police, and Narragansett's own K-9, "Rocki" - canvassed sections of the school starting at about 7:35 a.m. and through first period.

The Westerly and state police K-9s performed the in-door searches and Rocki searched the parking lot.

Only Smith and Durkin knew about the search beforehand – school administration was notified at about 6:45 a.m. that morning, said Smith.

Both he and Durkin were present for the first search, but will not necessarily be present in the future.

"We just kind of wanted to see how it was going to go," said Smith.

Students were on "lockdown" during the searches, for first period classes - a drill procedure that became state mandate in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, and will continue to coincide with the drug searches at the high school.

Students who came late were kept in the office, including sophomore Alex Smith, 15, who missed his first period class.

"As long as they're not going through my stuff, I don't care," he said after school Monday.

Most of the students did not see the search dogs, although Lemoi's first period class was in a classroom at the front of the building, and she saw them out the window.

Friday's search did run a little over time because of the "learning curve," said Smith, lasting about half an hour, but he expects the random drills to last about 20 minutes in the future.

Dogs will search areas like lockers, parking areas, and the faculty lounge, and procedure indicates that only when two dogs positively identify an area will school officials search the area.

 

Aren't we going a bit far when we are willing to suspend a student for a mere scent?

 

I am nearly stunned by the lack of rolleyes after this post. You can't possibly be serious.

 

Very good point. We need a drug policy that actually accomplishes its goals, one of which should be to treat people who become addicted. Instead, we go down the road of prosecution and incarceration even though we have over two million behind bars already.

Our drug policy can drastically reduce the number of young people who can get drugs, but we will have to go in a different direction.

 

It really sounded like sarcasm, but with some of the posters in here, you can't be too sure.

That is not to say anything about KingCheetah, I don't recall where he stands on this.

 

Sorry for the misunderstanding. That was so over the top that I couldn't believe the lack of rolleyes. I have just seen t_j post some of the most outrageous garbage.

 

The flip side of that coin is that prohibition creates the massive profits and then cedes control of distribution to criminals. Prohibition enriches criminals and terrorists, not drugs.

 

If I remember correctly, I was able to smoke much more pot when suspended from school.