Bad Lieutenant
Home School Group Says Police Used Excessive Force
Updated 25 February, 2005: Charges dropped, police officer fired (details at bottom of post)
Simpsonville Park has been a regular meeting place for a group of home-schoolers. For the past five years they’ve met there every Wednesday to let the kids play. Lately the park was also being used by a nearby public school. Their playground was blocked by portable temporary classrooms so teachers would walk the students across the street to Simpsonville Park for recess.
This situation led to disaster for the home-schoolers last Friday when a teacher noticed one of the boys was wearing a pocketknife in a belt holster. Instead of talking with the boy or a parent she did what she’d been trained to do - she called the cops.
“I heard a man yelling take your hands out of your pocket and I turned around and he was yelling at one of the boys in the group,� says another mother Priscilla Adams.
Priscilla�s 14-year-old son, Glenn says, “He started yelling and screaming at this boy for having a knife, then pushed him down.”
Priscilla says he then “went for another boy a 16-year-old, yelled at him something about having a knife, he pushed him to the ground.”
…
That�s when Priscilla says one of the other mothers tried to stop him, by getting between the officer and the student.“She was trying to protect a student, we didn’t know what was happening, he could’ve been a murderer, a rapist or anything, we just, he was attacking one of our kids and we were trying to stop him,” says Jan.
The plainclothes officer pushed that mother out of the way. He finally identified himself as a police officer shortly after that. He arrested the mother who had interfered with him for felony assault and the child for carrying a concealed weapon.
The actions of the police officer are absolutely appalling. The department has not commented on the incident except to say that an officer does not have to identify himself as an officer right away and to note that he was wearing a gun and badge on his belt.
The item that seems to be overshadowed by the officer’s reprehensible conduct is that of the public school teacher. By reacting in the conditioned fear response drilled into her by her school she precipitated the entire incident.
Following is an eyewitness recounting of the park incident from one of the homeschooling mothers:
The plainclothes officer was incredibly belligerent and angry right from the moment he rushed under the shelter. He could so easily have stopped as soon as he came up to us, announced that he was a police officer and needed to talk to the boy with the knife, but he didn’t do any of that. Instead he shouted, shoved, verbally abused, intimidated. He acted so horrible it never occurred to me, or to any of us, that he was a police officer. He just seemed like a crazy man. He never announced who he was until he had shoved the woman holding the baby and then she asked the mother of the baby to call the police. Only then did he say he was an officer. I asked him how we were supposed to know that and he said he was wearing a gun and a badge and so it was obvious. The gun and the badge were on the side of him that was turned away from all of us, I think, so I don’t know how we were supposed to see them. Also he was yelling so much we didn’t think to look at his belt. Anyway, I asked to see his badge and he thrust it at me. About this time a uniformed officer had come up and he confirmed that the plainclothes guy was a policeman. The plainclothes guy told the woman holding the baby to put him down, that she was going to be arrested. I asked him what he was arresting her for since she hadn’t done anything wrong. He told me for assaulting a police officer. I protested that she hadn’t known he was a police officer. He told me to shut up or I would be arrested too. So not only can he arrest a boy for carrying a knife that was not concealed, and charge him with carrying a concealed weapon, not only can he assault a woman holding a baby, then arrest her for assaulting him, but apparently he can arrest people just for arguing with him.
After the policemen took away the boy who’d had the knife and the woman who’d tried to protect the boy, the other kids started to show how upset they were. Some were crying. None of these children want to go back to that park ever, and we’ve been going there since xxx and I first started xxx nearly five years ago. We’ve felt very safe there before, and having the police station just beside the park seemed to be an advantage. We felt like nobody too bad would bother our kids with policemen so close by. We never thought it would be the police themselves that would be the frightening ones, the ones who would make our kids feel unsafe, who would make them have nightmares or keep them from even being able to sleep.
And another by the mother of the boy who was arrested:
One of the public school teachers that uses the park with us now, saw his knife on his belt and called the police saying that he had it out flashing it around their children, . . .A plain clothes investigator charged the shelter shouting at (another parent’s) son to take his hands out of his pocket and then shouting at my son that he was talking to him, he never announced that he was an officer, where his badge and gun were at on his hip no one could see at the time, when he reached out for my son, a mother stepped in and tried to keep him from grabbing him. He shoved her backwards while she held another mother’s baby. She shouted for someone to call the cops and he shouted he was the cops. He shoved my son to the ground and shouted for a uniformed officer who was catching up to him at this time to cuff her and arrest her. They walked **** to the police car and cuffed him and put him the car. She was already driven up to the police station and placed in a cell, all because she protected my son from a strange man that was being chased at a distance by uniformed officers. My son was arrested for carrying a deadly weapon/concealed weapon. She was charged with felony assault on an officer. One officer said he was about to draw his weapon, he had already unsnapped it and was pulling it out to draw and aim at my son, because he thought he was about to pull the knife on the plain clothes investigator. This same officer said no telling how many people could have gotten killed, in other words he was prepared to shoot towards the shelter with all the small children around.
(Tip credit to Tori in Texas)
UPDATE
Simpsonville Officer Fired After Park Arrest Investigation
A week after an incident at Simpsonville City Park, Simpsonville’s police chief says the officer involved in the arrest of a teen and a woman at a picnic has been fired.
In a statement released Thursday afternoon, Chief Charles Reece announced the investigator involved in the case, officer Michael Snow, has been terminated, and all of the charges have been dropped.
(Tip credit to Ed B and Henry Cate)
Incredible, the police and educators felt it was beneath them to speak to parents. The child authority of a school goes beyond the borders of a school, even if a child is not enrolled. I wonder if this incident is race related.
I wonder if the public school (in which he’s not enrolled) will expel him. You know… just to be on the safe side.
On a more serious note — an officer can arrest anyone he wants to for any reason whatsoever. If he wants to arrest you for arguing with him, then that is his right. Jim’s writeup indicates that the woman has been charged with a felony, but I wonder if the DA has actually brought up felony charges. She was most likely arrested for assaulting an officer, but if the story we’re reading is accurate, she will probably be let go without charges filed. If charges to get filed, beating them in court will be easy. There’s a possibility for a counter suit for wrongful arrest, but that might be harder to prove.
Its the typical cop attitude: “I can do anything I want to you, and there is nothing you can do about it!”
And every cop wonders: “Why don’t people respect us and want to help us. After all, we’re fighting crime.”
This cop ought to be in the jail cell for assualt and battery as well as abuse of power.
Just a caveat. There’s some indication that all is not as it appears here. A home educator in Simpsonville wrote on one of the listservs that they had heard nothing of this locally. The big local newspaper (The Greenville News) doesn’t have it. And, most interestingly, the public school that is located next to the park may have closed down two years ago.
I’ve written to the Chief of Police in Simpsonville asking for a comment. So far, nothing.
Daryl Cobranchi
Home Education & Other Stuff
That would be some VERY bad reporting from the local Fox affiliate if you’re right, Daryl! Additionally, a very well-known name in the online homeschooling community related that she got the information from one of the mothers in attendance. I have contacted her directly and invited her to come to this site and respond.
I did some searching and the story IS true.Its allover the net as well as on Fox:
http://www.foxcarolina.com/Global/story.asp?S=2971695
Now,why would someone claim it is not a true story?Its not a first that homeschoolers get assaulted or accused of things.
Daryl,
Do you really think that the Chief of Police WOULD respond to something like this? It’s easier to ignore your contact than to reply “no comment.” I would say that if he didn’t respond with an emphatic “this isn’t true”, that is a clue. I would like to do some digging about whether the school has closed or not.
It isn’t too odd that the local paper doesn’t have it yet. When all is said and done it was a minor fracas, one that we as a group are much more attuned to than the run of the mill newsie. Besides, news is still all about the scoop. I’d expect the Greenville paper to have it in their evening edition or tomorrow’s morning edition if their editorial staff deems it newsworthy.
But to answer Lovely Wife - fake news stories do come out. They’re one way to discredit people (like us) who react to them. That’s where Daryl’s concerns lie.
After doing some research, I don’t think the school in question is closed. Bryson Elementary is about 1500 feet from City Park, which is the park that is next door to the police station. In her account, one of the moms said that the elementary teachers are walking the students to the park from the school because they don’t have playground space. This is because they have too many portables now to have playground space.
Uh, guys, that’s MY homeschooling group. I’ve been there many times and I know this group personally.
We’ve been going to that park every week for well over a year. One of the reasons it was chosen was it’s proxiity to the police and the thought that the kids were safer there where there would be fewer nutjobs. Who new that the nutty ones were the police themselves? The school is not closed, the incident never would have occurred if that were the case. That’s ok though, we subversive homeschoolers will be just fine without having police like that next door when our kids are playing.
Well, I defer to Rick and Tina. But until they posted here, the accounts I’d seen were all at least secondhand. Even the ones posted on the listservs had been forwarded multiple times so that it was impossible to verify the veracity.
It still seems strange that the G’ville News is silent on this. Even their Simpsonville section has nothing. And I first saw this last Friday. If this was going to get any ink, it’d have happened by now.
And, no, this is NOT all over the ‘net: http://news.google.com/news?q=%22simpsonville%20police%22&num=100&hl=en&lr=&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&sa=N&tab=wn
That really could have been a deadly situation. What if one of the parents had been a concealed weapons carrier. Or what if the uniformed officer had shot. scary.
Daryl,
It’s not so strange that the big newspaper didn’t pick it up. Here in Austin (we call it the Austin American Statist), our paper wouldn’t touch that with a 20-foot pole. They are police protectionists. Here in Austin, I personally have been the victim of false arrest (hauled off for public intoxication - from my own house - when I hadn’t even had a drop of alcohol to drink because I dared argue with one of the officers who forced his way into my house over music that was too loud), and I and a few other people (witnesses) sent letters to try and get it into the paper - even into the letters to the editor section - and they totally ignored it.
As you probably already know, the media is mostly AGAINST homeschoolers - why would they want to paint us in a victim’s light? Be thankful they didn’t pick it up - they would havew made the homeschoolers into total monsters as the reason that cops had to react!
Dayrl,
As I live in Simpsonville, I can assure you that the school by the park and police station downtown IS open and being used by the PS students for recess period as the playground is covered with portable buildings used as classrooms. The school that has been closed is located on the other side of town off of West Georgia road. Pip
My name is Robert Adams. I am the husband of one of the mothers in the homeschool group. The group is Upstate Homeschooler Unlimited. I have some comments that might clear up some questions that have come up.
The school in question, Simpsonville Elementary was closed last year. But another elementary school in the area, Plain Elementary, is getting a total retrofit. There was no room to place portable classrooms on the grounds of this school so they were placed them on the playground of the closed elementary school. Since the school children didn’t have a playground they were using Simsponville City Park.
Now about the lack of reporting in the local newspapers or on the TV. (Channel 4 WYFF or Channel 7 WSPA). To people who have lived in the area for long (and my family has been in Simpsonville for 36 years) its no secret that these news outlets act as no more than the propaganda arms of the Greenville County Chamber of Commerse. They don’t want bad news about this county getting out. I mean its already bad enough that this is the only county is SC that hasn’t made Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday a holiday. They don’t want you to know that the police beat severely beat one man and shot (no less than 7 times in the head) within 10 days of the homeschooling incident. On the same night that one of the Presidential Debates was held in the Peace Center in Greenville, SC there was a hotel fire that killed 6 people. It was an arson fire. The Greenville News and TV channels were very low key on the whole thing. They don’t want bad news about this area getting out. It affects their bottom line.
In this case all of the people involved on both sides of the issue were white but Upstate Homeschoolers Unlimited or UHU (pronounced U-hoo)is a group that is open* to all races, creeds, colors, religions or people that don’t practice religion. This group was formed and is primarily about fun activites for our children and the dissemination of information about home schooling to any interested party.
*To quality you must be a local homeschooler or unschooler and first meet with other members.
PS:
I’m sorry for the misspellings and gramatical errors. I was in a hurry to post and didn’t proof my post.
These two web sites provide some contact information for the Police Chief:
http://www.usacops.com/sc/p29681/
http://www.simpsonvillepd.com/admin.htm
In general letting people know that they are being watched will often help them to do the right thing. It is probably worth writing a polite note saying that if the reports are try the the Chief of Police to issue a public apology, announce that all charges will be dropped, and that the undercover policeman did act out of line and will be disciplined. (Or better yet he will be fired.)
I’d like to make a remark about one of the first comments - regardless of the actions of the DA and his/her prosecution of the student with the pocket knife and/or the mother that stepped in to protect him, the arrests in and of themselves are a problem. Those are things that stay with a person for life. Records can be sealed or expunged but when candor is required (eg. entry into the SC bar as an attorney among others) those arrests must be divulged and may be problematic.
I am appauled that the police have not issued statements, dropped charges and made public appologies!!
If what is in the article is true, the officer first needs to be taken back to school himself to learn the law ~ while I know each state has different laws about carrying knives, I am almost possitive that a knife in a case on your belt…. you know in plain sight just as the officers badge and gun were*or so he says*…. is NOT conceling a weapon!!
Second, How can a women holding a baby *attack* an officer ?? I am still shaking my head over that one !!!
I also want to say that I agree with one of the first posts here… why was it that these people felt it was *below* them to speak to the parents about the knife in the first place ????????…. From what I read, the boy with the knife was having a *casual* conversation with another boy. If there was a *fight* going on, it would have been a different situation for the officer to come in running and yelling but I as many of you still cannot see what the point was of him coming in that way.
Y’all got me worked up over this Simpsonville incident. I’m glad I found your site and God Bless you for getting it going. I sent the following to the Simpsonville Police Chief Charles Reese at: chief@simpsonvillepd.com
Dear Chief Reese:
I live in Piedmont, Greenville County. Before that I lived in Holly Tree for 11 years. I have often brought my grandkids to the Simpsonville City Park and felt safe and enjoyed the facilities. The kids particularly like the “Circus” that y’all set up over there periodically. But I’m thinking I won’t be coming again.
The incident with the belligerent plainclothes officer who over-reacted to the kid (not a school kid) with the knife smacks of pure paranoia. This kid was obviously under his mother’s supervision, and rather than assessing the situation as a normal adult might, this officer went into panic mode, arresting both the mother and her son - the mother for attempting to protect her child against this “crazed person” whom she had no way to know was an officer. I have to ask, what is our society coming to when a young man who has nothing to do with the school cannot carry a knife in a public park? I have a rather nice Gerber that I got from the SC Wildlife folks. Does this incident suggest that if I come over there with my grandkids I will be arrested for using the City Park?
I think it’s imperative that a public apology be issued to the citizens of Greenville County by either yourself or the Mayor for this wholly unwarranted abuse of power. Furthermore, it would seem that some sensitivity training is overdue for your officers. It goes without saying that these charges are scurrilous and should have already been dropped, and that the undercover policeman whose actions were way out of line should be disciplined. I suggest that suspension or discharge are not beyond reasonable expectations.
To Protect and Serve is a great motto, but if the actions of earlier this week are any indication, much work must be done to restore public faith in the integrity of your force. I empathize with the stresses your officers are subjected to, never knowing who might pull a weapon and use deadly force without a second thought. But when I was a teen fifty years ago, an officer who suspected something would come over and engage people in discussion. Times may have changed, but I cannot accept that pre-emptive force is an acceptable solution. Subdue the threat, of course - that’s the primary objective, but do you not agree that the threat must first be assessed? Was this young man a threat? Did he threaten anyone? Did anyone observe any intent to threaten or disrupt? Or have we in Simpsonville moved past that point to where the weapon (or potential weapon) IS the ONLY threat?
I was a Boy Scout once. I carried a knife when I was a teen. I never cut anybody except myself, by accident. Do you know if this young man was perhaps an Eagle Scout? Let’s assume he was. Would that have made any difference to the arresting officer?
I hope you will take appropriate action.
Ed B
Piedmont
Bless you Ed for the information on the laws.
you can bet I’ll be an “informed” citizen now.
Just one more case of school representatives harassing home-schoolers. So now a teacher can make/enforce rules for home-schooled children? Of course, the police officer is at fault here too. There was a big discussion of this issue on WORD yesterday morning. Russ and Lisa seem to think this officer needs to be investigated, but the NAACP isn’t calling for an investigation like they did for the incident at the Jesse Jackson town homes last week.
Jason,
The NAACP isn’t involved because the kid with the knife is white.
Tim, the 16 year old kid, was interested in Cheerokee Indians. Here is the USHS account. They are trying to raise money for legal fees.
http://www.uhucrew.org/police_harassment.html
Does anyone know if the public park this incident
happened in is considered “school property” due to the fact that a school has commandeered it for a recess time during renovations since their own property is unavailable, and would the laws pertaining to “on school property” apply?
There seems to be a big difference between “common” law and the application of law where schools/property apply.
From another list that I’m on - some explanations from one of the moms in the group:
. .one of the reasons some of the boys carried pocket knives and such is because there are woods behind the park that the older kids go walking in. There are always briars to deal with so they liked to have a knife for that purpose. That’s all the 16 year old’s knives had ever been used for. He never ever used it violently or threatened anyone with it. The boy has no problems with aggression and is certainly not considered a bully or a threat to anyone in our group. The little kids talk to him like he’s one of their own. The knife he was carrying was not a large one. It was just a small sheath knife that he’d tied a feather to to make it look more Native American. I’ve read in some places that it was a large hunting knife. Not at all. I’m not sure of the length of the blade but I would say no more than three inches, possibly less. We hope to have a duplicate to photograph today. Yes, people do carry knives in the south. It’s not that unusual to see a man or a teenager with a knife on his belt, and certainly many more people carry pocket knives, some with blades longer than the knife the boy had. His wasn’t concealed so why they charged him with concealing a deadly weapon is beyond me. And no, he never had it out of its sheath that day.
Worldnet daily had an article about the incident: http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=42995
Apparently, there is a fundraiser underway to help pay for legal costs.
worldnet daily is now reporting that all charges have been dropped and the officer has been terminated.
The page which was asking help to fight possible legal costs:
http://www.uhucrew.org
Is also reporting that the policeman lost his job. And there is a video of an interview with the chief of police here:
http://www.thecarolinachannel.com/news/4229947/detail.html
which also confrms that the policeman was fired.
It looks like justice has quickly triumphed here.
“It’s not that unusual to see a man or a teenager with a knife on his belt, and certainly many more people carry pocket knives, some with blades longer than the knife the boy had.” - tori in texas
People find it highly amusing when this tall girl in long skirts and boots (me) pulls a leatherman out of her backpack and uses it to jimmy the hole-puncher back open. It isn’t just the boys.
Glad to hear that things worked out. I’ve been arrested before on bogus charges, and it’s really hard to explain what that does to your psyche. It’s probable that none of these people will trust the police again for a long, long, time, if ever. Let the healing begin for these people.
By the way, Allanque, I carry a Gerber in my purse, too (except in airports). But it sounds like this cop had prejudged the situation: boy with knife = bad.
One small step for Simpsonville; one giant leap for justice.
What about the teacher who reported this as a crime, I wonder if there will be any consequence for that person. I guess the police will consider the source in the future.
Thank you, Chief. We all, police departments included, make mistakes. How often do we find a PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT willing to admit fault and take responsibility? Jim, do you keep track how many times this has happened in all these crazy stories? Sure seems rare…
To be perfectly fair, the final resolution on the majority of these stories goes unreported. That said, I’ve never profiled a story where a school administration admitted fault and apologized. There have been a handful of individuals who have done so but never an administration as a body.
I’m glad that Jim does such a SUPER job with these reports, following up whenever possible. I was going to comment the other day, until I read about the possibility of the story being bogus. But thanks to Jim and his readers, this ‘real’ story has been exposed enough to force justice. I believe it would have been swept under the rug had it not been for the grass-root’ers and watchdogs. You people are great — I salute you!
Posted by: Allanque:
“People find it highly amusing when this tall girl in long skirts and boots (me) pulls a leatherman out of her backpack and uses it to jimmy the hole-puncher back open. It isn’t just the boys. :)”
Ditto (except I wear clogs). I got stuck in a small bathroom because the door wouldn’t open. If it hadn’t been for my metal nail file, I would have been stuck much longer. I’ve carried a leatherman in my purse ever since (except airports and courts of course).
It’s probable that none of these people will trust the police again for a long, long, time, if ever. Let the healing begin for these people.
Torit, you’re correct. A number of the children, particularly the smaller ones, are afraid of police now. Many of them have stated they do not want to ever go back to that park, either. (I’m out of state and haven’t been to the park in a while, so I don’t know if they went there last week or not but they were certainly considering going somewhere else from now on.)
At least he was canned. Someone displayed good sense for a change.
Wow, incredibly justice was served. It allows me to hold out hope that policeman are held accountable for their actions and when they screw up, they too must pay the price.
Good News 2/28/2005
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