LA Weekly Shows LA School Police Department Endangering L.A. Kids;

Community Rights Campaign Calls on the LAUSD Board to Protect Students, Form Civilian Police Review Board

In last week’s cover story, “LAUSD’s Finest,” by Max Taves, the LA Weekly exposed the Los Angeles School Police Department (LASPD) as a “scandal-ridden force” that is being allowed to “endanger L.A. kids.”  The story relies on 2 secret audits and closely follows the story of one LASPD officer who abused his power to sexually assault students. 

The LA Weekly story points to the deeper, more systemic problem that the Community Right Campaign has been investigating in our own 3-year student survey of LASPD officer conduct in and around school campuses.  The LASPD is an unaccountable police force that ignores the laws they purport to enforce. Because of its neglect for human rights and the personal safety of the 680,000 LAUSD students, the LASPD must be reigned in and made accountable to a community review board.

In our work for a moratorium on LASPD’s notorious $250 tardy tickets, the Community Rights Campaign has collected informal surveys on LASPD officer conduct in and around school campuses. The more than 1,400 Student Incident Forms we collected from Westchester, Cleveland, Belmont, Crenshaw, Dorsey, West Adams, LA High, Roosevelt, Washington Prep, University, and North Hollywood High Schools reveal:

• Police “checkpoints” outside school entrances and nearby bus stops, giving students $250 “truancy tickets” for being late.
• Black and Latino students being profiled, stopped and searched in and around school campus.
• Instances of LASPD officers using excessive force and restraint, verbal abuse, mace and handcuffs on students.
• Sexual harassment of young women by male officers (lewd looks, suggestive comments).
• A belief among many students that school police do not  enhance school safety, that police often escalate conflicts and/or use excessive force in handling situations.

HOY, the Spanish language daily, began reporting on LASPD abuses as early as 2007.  In the  10/12/07, reporter Francisco Castro Diario interviewed a 15-year-old student:

“I thought I was going to die right then and there”, stated 15 year old John Flores, who was attacked by an LASPD officer in a locked bathroom at Sylmar High School “I felt like…I did not have rights. I feared for my life in there”

The time has come for LAUSD to take control of the LA School Police Department and make it accountable to LAUSD parents, students and the people of Los Angeles.

We believe that the LAUSD Board needs to:

• Create an accountable LASPD Review Board made up of parents and students that is external to the Department. This is the first step to begin to curtail the violations of civil and human rights that don’t make it to the media.
• Initiate a complete and public review of LASPD operating procedures, policies and accountability mechanisms that will allow for public scrutiny and oversight.
• End any racial profiling or induction into any Gang Databases by LASPD.

LAWEEKLY article: LAUSD's Finest: Los Angeles School Police - How an oblivious school board lets a tiny, scandal-ridden force endanger L.A. kids