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Thursday, May 27, 2004
Kent schools should drop handcuffs, panel says
Recommendation follows claims of force on black students
By GREGORY ROBERTS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
KENT -- Security guards in the Kent schools should abandon the use of handcuffs to restrain unruly students, and the security department's culture needs to be reoriented, an independent investigatory panel recommended last night.
The panel, which was formed in response to allegations that guards have used excessive force in disciplining black students, also said the schools should call in the police if weapons or physical restraints are necessary to quell a threat.
But in a letter accompanying the report, Kent Schools Superintendent Barbara Grohe questioned that recommendation, wondering about what could happen while waiting for the police to arrive and raising the specter of Columbine.
"Providing a safe and secure place to learn is an issue of such complexity -- one driven by the human dynamics of a given moment -- that it is virtually impossible to impose a 'one size fits all' solution," she wrote.
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Security guards have pulled hair, twisted arms and handcuffed students as young as 11, the parents' claims say. The disciplinary measures represent "institutional racism at its finest," said Carl Mack, president of the Seattle chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
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