BOB HERBERT: A Girl’s Fear and Loathing

[kevinmc]

In a column earlier this week I wrote about a cop who grotesquely abused his power by invading a high school classroom in the Bronx because a girl had uttered a curse word in a hallway. Not only did the cop handcuff and arrest the girl in a room filled with stunned students and a helpless teacher, but he arrested the school’s principal, who had attempted to reason with the officer.

The principal was suspended from his job immediately after the arrest in February 2005, but was reinstated when the charges — bogus from the very beginning — were eventually dropped. Still, the police commissioner, Ray Kelly, defended the police officer’s action, telling reporters at the time, “The principal was simply wrong.”

As I continued to look into this case, it became clear that police officials were trying to withhold important information about the officer, Juan Gonzalez. In response to a question, a spokesman for Commissioner Kelly said that Officer Gonzalez, now 29, had been placed on modified duty and that his gun and shield had been taken away.

But why? Despite repeated requests, the department would not say....

http://freedemocracy.blogspot.com/2007/07/bob-herbert-girls-fear-and-loathing.html

[sakabatou]

1. ::headdesk:: x9000

[1monster]

2. I hate having police officers stationed in the schools. I've seen and heard

of too many officers criminalizing normal behavior and destroying young people's lives.

When I think of the ones I know of, it makes me sick.

(Some of these school resource officers are great and the kids love them. Others are the pits of the earth and should never have been given a badge in the first place.)