Posted on 03/30/2006 7:57:34 PM PST by rockbobster
A mob scene unfolded at Oceanside High School on Mission Avenue Wednesday morning when about 200 students tried to leave campus, only to be blocked by police officers toting pepper-spray pellet guns and wearing riot gear.
The scene at the campus subsided as school let out this afternoon and protesting students headed for the Oceanside Bandshell at the beach. Three boys have been arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon for allegedly throwing chunks of concrete at officers during the incident at the school.
Tensions arose at the school just before noon, when several hundred students tried to leave campus in protest of proposed immigration policies.
Officers shot pepper-spray-filled pellets at the ground as students shook a locked fence surrounding the school. The students were chanting, "One people united will never be divided."
(Excerpt) Read more at staggeron.org ...
they should have just stood outside the gates with a bunch of citation books. kids are all obviously skipping class, hand each one a $200 fine and tell them to have fun.
Yeah, most of them probablly are truant, or would be if allowed to leave the grounds, but pepper spray to combat truancy seems like overkill.
True. It would be nice to hear both sides of the story correctly rather than from the news media.
Here in Houston there is a curfew ordinance. That's what they're arresting them on.
We went on strike when I was in 4th grade, because the substitute teacher had sent a kid in early from a softball game during p.e. for cussing. We took our bats and walked around the courtyard yelling "W'ere on Strike! We're on Strike!" until the principal came out, and I guess we were pretty scared of him cuz we dispersed when he started snarling at us.
I was soooo scared I was going to be in trouble that when my Mom picked me up I thought I'd better get in a preemptive confession so I told her what had happened. I couldn't understand why she wasn't saying anything, and when I looked over she was biting her lip to keep from cracking up.
This was during the height of the Vietnam protests, btw, Spring of 1969.
Yeah, that's true. The J-screwl grads are utterly dependable. The way they tell the story is almost never the way it actually happened.
Hmmm why not wait to lock the gates until they have left?. Then refuse entry for the rest of the term to them, that way those who appreciate the education TAX PAYERS have provided for them can actually learn,in peace and quiet.
Whether they did or didn't doesn't matter. Cops have no business blocking school exits in a non-emergency situation.
Who do you suppose called the police if not the school administrators, who know all to well what mischief 200 kids can get up to? Did the cops divine that something was up at the high school?
I'm well aware that the school informed the police that at 11am tons of kids were planning to leave to go to the protest. I'd assume that the gate-blocking decision was made by both the police and the school admins.
There was no reason for the police to be anywhere near the school. Schools often close mid-day for teacher's conferences, unleashing many hundreds of teens to roam the street - and nobody even notices. What makes this any different, other than the kids were breaking school rules by leaving, and most of them had a common destination? They need tear gas to keep this "mob" inside the school when they all get out anyways in 3 or 4 hours?
There was no "mob" until a bunch of kids were threatened with an immediate tear gassing for skipping school. And any kid there who may have respected the local cops will now fear them and consider them his enemy. I really can't believe how the cops could have been involved in anything this stupid.
You really think there's an 11am curfew in Los Angeles? Doesn't curfew mean "not be out after a certain time?"
I read that arrests and detainments were made with a variety of excuses, from truancy to disobeying an officer to disorderly conduct.
But what's that got to do with blocking school exits and threating tear gassing to whoever leaves??
They were there to keep it from becoming an emergency situation.
There was no "mob" until a bunch of kids were threatened with an immediate tear gassing for skipping school. And any kid there who may have respected the local cops will now fear them and consider them his enemy. I really can't believe how the cops could have been involved in anything this stupid.
You should have stated at the outset that you were there and had such a command of the situation.
No they weren't. There was no threat at all of any kind of emergency situation being created. All indications were that all the students were going to leave to go to join a protest (and no doubt many if not most would just use the protest as an excuse to leave school early and just go home or wherever).
Everyone would be free to leave after school hours anyways. What's the difference if they get out a couple hours early? There was no reason that the school couldn't have just handled this as just kids skipping class, which is all that it was.
You should have stated at the outset that you were there and had such a command of the situation.
I only know what I read from the local newspaper articles. I'm speculating based on those - if I'm wrong about something I'd like to be corrected. (Seriously. This story, as I read about it, just seems outrageous to me. Maybe I'm making some false assumptions; maybe there's some info I'm missing which would make the police action understandable.)
I think you are. But I could be wrong. The fact is that I trust the police in these situations rather than a mob of kids. My belief will come up and bite me in the ass occasionally but stands me in good stead most of the time.
I'm sure we all have no idea how handsomely.
I'd like to know at some point, in detail.
But not now.
I just had an omelet and I'd like not to have it reverse direction in midstream.
I must apologize to you for my "do you really think that LA has an 11am curfew?" comment, and stand corrected.
Apparently, in LA, the "curfew" law is used to enforce what most of us would call "truancy" to arrest school-age kids between 8:30am - 1:30pm on school days.
Also, this curfew-truancy law applies even to 16 and 17 year olds who are enrolled in school - I was surprised to learn that. (It doesn't apply to those school-kids 18 and over, though).
my source was this leftist "students' right to walkout" information: http://www.nlg-la.org/student_rights.pdf
I did notice a cool Contitutional loophole that students could use to protect themselves from LA curfew laws - local curfew laws don't apply to students in motor vehicles engaged in intertate travel. All students have to do to avoid a curfew-truancy arrest in LA is to all jump in somebody's car, start the car and announce that they're all going for an interstate road trip. (They could say that they're going to Washington, DC, for example, to protest in person to the govt.)
Any truancy arrest would be thrown out (and the kids could even sue for false arrest), since the local cops can't interfere with interstate travel.
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