Drug Sniffing Dogs at Local High School

reply to post by Evolutionsend


Wow my school was a lot different. The only time security went near my car was when I locked the keys in it. I thought your car was considered private property, it was where I went to high school anyway.

reply to post by 12m8keall2c


should have likely added '/sarcasm'

Originally posted by vjr1113
does the school have a policy of random drug searches?

It's a public school. It doesn't matter unless there's a policy prohibiting it. What matters is constitutional law (criminal procedure).

Police can bring dogs into a public school to sniff lockers under case law. But, for example, enforced drug testing of students isn't permissible (except to allow to participate in after school sports per school policy, etc).

The difficulty with the particular scenario described here is that students were apparently told to leave their belongings behind. A possible argument is that this triggered an illegal seizure and thus went beyond what's been allowed in controlling cases. But case law research would be necessary.

Ordinarily, a dog sniff by itself doesn't trigger 4th amendment protections.

This might seem like a huge shock to a whole lot of people, but school politics, much like regular politics, is bullcrap. The school admin doesn't care about your rights, they only care about turning you into sheep. Trust me, I know. I was treated unfairly by the school admin for years, before I found out about student advocates. If I knew about them from the getgo, I would have never been suspended, or expelled, and would have most likely ended up with compensation from the school.

The school is there to teach you that you cannot solve any problems yourself, that you need authority figures to do it. You cannot rely on yourselves, you need to pay someone else to do it properly. They are doing a bangup job of it too I think. How many people do you know that can handle the smallest issue without calling on some paid authority to help? Unless you live in the country, probably not that many. Schools hinder progress, they teach kids that thinking is not only not required, but it is bad. And we wonder why our countries are so screwed......

Oh yeah, as an afterthought, my principal threatened me with strip searches, for over 3 hours, when I was 14. If the schools would have taught human rights, I would have known he was full of it. But that is not the school's business, they are there to teach compliance.

My highschool had visits by drug dogs lots of times. They would show up unannounced to the children)go class to class and we would all have to go outside and leave our bags in the room as the dog went bag to bag...

At the time I had no problem, but looking back it really shows just how little our basic rights were respected at that age....

No warning, just show up, ordered to leave our bags in the room and the dogs would go through them whether we liked it or not....

No warrant, no suspicion... Just search.... They never found anything in any of the classrooms I was in ( Which honestly is a bit surprising, considering there were a few druggies in my classes)

But, really, it does irk me now. That happened about 4-6 times while I was in high school. It could have been more. I used to skip a lot.

Parents were not notified of an upcoming search, students were not notified.... I have no idea if the teachers knew... The principal seemed to. He walked door to door with them...

I know minors don't have the same rights adults do.... But I wonder... Do they not have to have at least a reasonable suspicion before they can go search through our bags? I mean, every one of them. Every student in the school....

Meh, kind of gross.

reply to post by gimme_some_truth


I remember how our right to free speech were crapped on as well when I was a HS kid. We had 4 months during my freshman year, where the school had no heat in the winter. When we protested that, we were told that we would either STFU and go to class, or be suspended and maybe arrested. It was an eye opener when like 98% of the people dropped their signs and ran to class.......

Originally posted by woodwardjnr
What happens if a kid gets caught with drugs at this school, what are the punishments? Are they going to criminalize t kids before they have even left school?

If found, the kid is arrested and taken to Juvenile Hall. They are charged with possession and have a record until they're 18. Supposedly. Deep FBI background checks find everything, even within sealed records. It pretty much screws a kid for years to come.

Originally posted by vjr1113
does the school have a policy of random drug searches?

if it does you should be aware of it. searching thru bags, phones, and wallets, is too far but it's their school. if you dont like it, send your kid somewhere else.

It is not always as easy as "send your kid to another school". In the US you have 3 choices, public school, private school, home schooling. Private school is very expensive in the US. Home schooling your children is not always an option. Many 2 parent homes require both parents to work. For many that only leaves Public School, in which there is no choice. You send your kid to a school based on your zip code.

Also public schools are not "their schools". They are the taxpayers schools, the taxpayer paid for those schools.

reply to post by Bablock


Every time a community gives up it's freedom it creeps into every other aspect of life. It is really difficult for me to accept that people want their children or their community to be policed. We have an ugly communistic USA coming to life.

Where do we draw the line? People need to stand up. We are entering an Orwellian society. Better cough up now than choke later.

Why do people want this type of world? It is beyond my belief that people want more government control over their lives.

Insane.

They were doing this at my school as well, right around the time they started putting cameras all over campus. On random days the dogs would show up, sniff all the cars in the parking lot, then go inside and sniff the lockers. We never had to leave our backpacks in a classroom then exit as a dog went through the classroom, they only searched backpacks if they had reasonable cause.

This is how it was explained to us back then.

Schools are responsible for your kids, from the bus stop to the campus and back, the school takes temporary guardianship of your children while at school or to and from school on a bus or field trip.

All schools are also drug free zones, drug offences are more severe in and around a school zone.

So technically while your kid (17 years old or younger) is at school they're under the guardianship of the school system/county on their campus/property they can search anyone on the premises.

I think if the kid is 18 years old, they might need a search warrant to go through a backpack? I know if your car is on their property they can search it without a warrant.

this isnt new to me. i remember having random searches at school using search dogs as far back as 2000.

reply to post by Bablock


That was my fear. Criminalising kids at such a young age is of no benefit to anyone.

reply to post by Bablock


Gosh, it just keeps getting better. in this article, we can read about a school creating a false flag event to fool the kids, then they begin a drug search. To top it off, they claim they are creating a nurturing environment.

articles.courant.com...

As I stated in an earlier post, 4th amendment protections wouldn't be triggered by a dog sniff alone. The question is whether forcing the students to leave their belongings behind would amount to an illegal seizure. In other words, if police walked up and down hallways with a dog or in the aisles between seats in a classroom, this wouldn't be an issue legally.

Without access to Westlaw or Lexis/Nexis, it's difficult to research on the web, but I did find a Texas case from 2010 where the state court of appeals ruled that requiring all students to temporarily leave belongings for purposes of a canine drug sniff didn't amount to an illegal seizure. (You didn't say what state you're in).

Texas Case

Originally posted by IamCorrect
As I stated in an earlier post, 4th amendment protections wouldn't be triggered by a dog sniff alone. The question is whether forcing the students to leave their belongings behind would amount to an illegal seizure. In other words, if police walked up and down hallways with a dog or in the aisles between seats in a classroom, this wouldn't be an issue legally.

Without access to Westlaw or Lexis/Nexis, it's difficult to research on the web, but I did find a Texas case from 2010 where the state court of appeals ruled that requiring all students to temporarily leave belongings for purposes of a canine drug sniff didn't amount to an illegal seizure. (You didn't say what state you're in).

Texas Case

I disagree. They are using the dog to "look" into someone's belongings, just like xray. You can argue all you want that it has been "upheld". I do not care what the Supreme Court has to say, they are wrong on so many issues that they are a joke.

You can argue that they are doing a greater good by violating the constitution, but I would rather have the constitution intact and let a few people break the law, than to start down that slippery slope of liberty vs security. In my opinion we have gone way too far down that slope already.

It's time to stop this gestapo conditioning and reinstate the constitution.

reply to post by Bablock


I find this funny and always did (when i was in school) We had the dogs sniff the lockers but never had to leave our stuff behind.
Why do i find this funny? Because its illegal search and seizure. If the school says they have "property rights" (lockers) then any drug found is the schools, if they search your kids bags without there permission its illegal search and seizure so it wont hold up in court.

The kid must not leave his bag behind (this can be seen as permission) and he/she should state they do not agree to a search of any kind.

WE ALL HAVE RIGHTS THAT EXTEND BEYOND DOORS AND PROPERTY LINES!
the kids in that school should know there rights and maybe you and your child can help them look up and learn there rights.

Originally posted by Bablock
First, as far as I know, we don't all give up our rights when we step on a campus.

The Supreme Court contradicts itself in this respect. They keep stating that minors have 1st and 4th amendment protections in school, and then make it clear they have very little protection at all. They say that minors have free speech protection, but then say it's okay for a public school not to allow a student to wear a t-shirt with the words Marilyn Manson on it, because Manson is known to promote drug use.

And what about the right not to be subjected to corporal punishment? Does it really make sense that adults can never be physically punished but it's okay to physically hurt children? In schools, and by parents. Why is it okay? Because of tradition?

reply to post by Bablock


this was happening in small town midwest america in the 80's! everyone knew you could slip a pot seed in the vent of a locker and set off the dogs. It was a joke, and the cop's knew it!

We had sort of the same thing at our school.

But what happened at ours was we were IN CLASS and they closed all the doors.

Then the dogs got walked around all the lockers. We had a school of about 200 kids, so like maybe 2-3 MAX got dinged.

I am not sure if they were walked around the cars outside in the parking lot, but from what I remember they were.

well they want to keep the drugs out of the school