NEWS: 10 Young Students Strip-Searched in Texas

Ten Texas school children aged 11 – 12 were strip searched down to their underwear by officials searching for a stolen 10 dollar bill. The seven girls and 3 boys were subjected to the search when another student reported the money missing. The police chief of La Marque maintains that the searches were not illegal. AT least one parent has pulled her 4 children from the school.

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This seems pretty excessive especially given the ages of the children involved. While it technically may be within the bounds of the schools administration, I would be very angry if my child had been subjected tot his. To make things worse, they did not find any money. The principal had the gall to say they had done this before and this is the first time they had gotten complaints.

Wow- If my daughter was placed in this situation, I would be in a rage. This is totally wrong, especially over a misplaced 10 dollar bill. There are other, more appropiate manners for getting to the truth in the situation.
I have a feeling there will be litigation over this one, and is well justified, imo. Criminal charges should be possible.

I believe that they will be able to skirt the issue on this one. While the parents can argue that they never gave permission for a strip search, it probably wouldn't hold up in court.

The school does make you sign a form granting them what is called:

Parentis en Absentia / Loco Parentis

What this term means, from my understanding, is that while the child is in custody of the school district, the school and all of it's officers(faculty) have parental authority granted to them over your child via your waiver.

This means that in a court of law, the schools legal representation could in fact try to use this waiver as a means to skirt the issue, and most likely would do so.

That's not to say that these children's parents don't have a leg to stand on. They do. They can get council and try to pressure the school into a settlement.

Things for them to get clear now are:

Who administered the check? Was it a female for all female children? Was a school medical person there during the procedure? What certification does the medical person hold? Was a Texas Peace Officer present during the procedure?

Was there ever physical contact, that includes a "pat down" search prior to the strip search.

Where the children yelled at or coerced during this time?

Were they threatened or forced to strip?


Those are all questions that I personally would have figured out before contacting my attorney.

Good luck to them, hope they get millions, but they probably won't.

X

What, only a strip search, I would have called in the SWAT team. If there is no one to properly parent kids someone has to do it. Who ever stole the 10 dollars had better get good night in jail.

I do hope your statement was in jest.

Well, if not, it's a good thing you were not in charge there, then.

Your reaction to this matter would be considered an Excessive Use of Force, and would guarantee the parents of these children would have legal recourse.

Your plan of action would severly harm the school as well as the police department.

X

a gun? Drugs? Something important?


Absolutely unacceptable. Did they even find the freeking money? {apparently not}


Thats hardly relevant. Its not illegal and they don't need to give their consent. Having said that, it was an absolutely idiotic decision, making children be stripped by stangers, for 10 bucks? Yeesh.

It would not be considered excessive force, kids nowadays are brining guns into school. The police are just prepared for the worst, thats all. Remember Columbine?

This is just un-believable. Had that been my children, especially one of my daughters, I would stop at nothing to get back at them. If the courts would do nothing, I would probably resort to physical violence and property damage. I just can’t believe they would do that. Wow. Good find.

Well the Police have their reasons. They followed what was in thier best judgement the correct course of action. What if one of the demons had a weapon? The police were properly checking in order to be prepared.

You are incorrect on this one, friend.

You are speaking to a former Texas Peace Officer who worked for the San Antonio Police Department and Did HighSchool Police Officer Duties for extra money on my off days(3 days a week) for 3 years.

We dealt with it all, guns, drugs, teen sex, rape. With children that were aged from 14 - 18 years old. Even though in Texas a person over 17 is considered an adult, and charged as one, when we worked in a school environment, the school policy dictated we reacte to ALL students via the minor(under 17) penal system.

You carried a gun, but were never, ever granted deadly force, unless you had been fired upon repeatedly, or another officer had already had the same done to him.

Once a week you had to go to a 2 hour class on Excessive Use Of Force regarding Juveniles.

I speak from experience on this.

X

Also worth noting: Mine is not "old information" as I still hold my L-1 Texas Peace Officer License which requires retraining yearly. I am in college now, after a shootout that made me question my priorities in life. I still carry the full duties of a Peace Officer in the state of Texas 24/7.

[edit on 8-1-2005 by Xatnys]

OK Xatnys, I understand, but what about serious violations. What if a student was carrying a gun, what would be the correct course of action you would take? I would like to know, because I do not know.

Wow, I'm afraid to see what the school would of done if it was drugs they were looking for . But a strip search for 10 bucks? Un-freaking-beliveable.

To my knowledge, this is legal in schools but I believe it should be reserved for important searches such as looking for drugs, or weapons not 10 dollars
.

Are you for real? "The demons"? Where do you get that from, none of those searched had the money! Had a weapon? They weren’t looking for weapons! Good logic there; in fact, lets just strip search each child down to their underwear every morning before class to search for weapons.

I've pulled guns off of many minors, several of them at a school or within 1000 feet of a school.

You have to follow a very strict protocol. You must react swiftly, but still must minimize your physical contact with the child.

I worked at both the Harlendale I.S.D. (gang land) and North East I.S.D., but the procedure for finding a weapon on a minor was the same in both places.

You would pull the child out of whatever situation he was in.

Have a cover officer with you.

If female, wait for female officer.

If male, take out your portable metal detector.

Scan 4 inches away from physical contact with the suspect(child)

When an item read as metalic, instruct the child to tell you what that was.

When he identified the gun, you then remove it.

Handcuff the suspect and wait for transfer to Bexar County Lockup.

Suspect would have 3 felony charges against him.

Female is the same, but you wait for a female officer to come.

If one is not on scene, Bexar County S.O. or S.A.P.D. would send one.

Subject remains handcuffed and standing covered until the female officer arrives.


You can't mess around with kids. Now, if we had a similar situation, but picked the kid up as S.A.P.D. at a bar or party, he'd go down to the dirt and be handled like an adult as long as he had means to kill a person. Of course, even there you used discretion.

X

Here in canada you would be jailed
I really don't get the point of the guy sayin it's legal
it's pedophily for me that's all I can say

The kids didn't have the $10.00 bill. Maybe they should then have strip-searched the underpaid teachers.

I wonder about some people saying it's ok to strip search down to the underwear to search for $10. At what point does it go too far? What if the kids hid the $10 or even twice as much $20 under their underwear? Then the kids must completely disrobe. What would the police do if they didn't find the money then? What if the money was even twice the above at say $40? Would an internal body search be done then? What if they didn't find the object in question but it was metallic? Ok, let's X-ray the kids and see if we find it. I believe we may need more guidelines as to what is ok for authorities to perform in their searches.

I'd expect outrage if 10 ADULTS were stripped searched for such a frivolous reason. When it happend to children you just have to wonder whether people like that should be working in schools. Beggers belief.

Guns? $10 Bills? What if one was carrying an improvised explosive device. I think they should have used the Patriot Act to prosecute the offender, detain him in Guantanimo Bay where we can "get" information from him that could prevent another tragedy of the same kind. Those kids could have had an atomic bomb... Only strip searched to their underwear?? There are other places to hide things when being strip searched... They should have looked there too. (all in jest)

Seriously though... I bet it was a GOVERNMENT SCHOOL! What do you expect? There was no THREAT and the 10 dollar bill sounds like it was just misplaced. Not a place to trust with your "future generation". Does anyone think the police would have "properly checked in order to be prepared" anyone on the street for a missing $10 bill? I lose a $100 bill in a room with 4 other adults. I don't think I can call the cops and have them stripped and searched to see if they MIGHT have stolen it. I would give the police the benifit of the doubt, but the SCHOOL involved probably had a POLICY... Stick those policies up your... oh where did the policies go... O.K. Who has my policy??? Everybody AGAINST THE WALL AND SPREAD EM!!! I can't find my policy and one of you stole it!!! I'm calling the police. Oh wait... it was under my stack of papers. You can get dressed. GEEZ!

IF YOU GIVE THE GOVERNMENT THE POWER TO DO SOMETHING... THEY WILL DO IT, AND WITH THE THREAT OF LETHAL FORCE TO BACK IT UP! SO BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU ALLOW THE GOVERNMENT TO DO! It's like a fire.

Um did you read th article? The cops did not search the students, the teachers did.