High School Offers Controversial Police Workshop

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A New York City high school has introduced a rare workshop into its curriculum: How to deal with the police.

East Side Community High School recently hosted the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) for a two-day, hour-long workshop for 450 students (and several eighth graders) that taught them how to behave if they get stopped by the police. Instructors focused on the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk program and Fourth Amendment Rights. They also distributed pamphlets titled, “What To Do If You’re Stopped by the Police” which included the advice ‘keeps your hands out of your pockets” and “be polite.”

However, kids were also taught that it’s best to remain silent and that they don’t have to show their ID to cops or agree to be searched. There was even a portion of class dedicated to filing complaints against police officers. The course complemented a recent history class during which students discussed the shooting of a black teenager by a white policeman in Ferguson, Missouri.

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Yahoo Parenting could not reach Principal Mark Federman for comment, however he invited the NYCLU after hearing many students complain about being routinely stopped by the police. “We’re not going to candy-coat things — we have a problem in our city that’s affecting young men of color and all of our students. It’s not about the police being bad,” Federman told the New York Post. “This isn’t anti-police as much as it’s pro-young people . . . It’s about what to do when kids are put in a position where they feel powerless and uncomfortable.”

Candis Tolliver, assistant advocacy director at the New York Civil Liberties Union, tells Yahoo Parenting that the workshop was necessary at a school where the majority of students are black and Hispanic. “When you look at the stop-and-frisk numbers, about 50 percent of people stopped are between the ages of 14 and 24 and 90 percent are black and Latino,” she says. “We want students to know how to respond to situations safely and appropriately so things don’t escalate.” Tolliver also says she has never received a request for police training from a school in which students are predominantly white.

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In order to conduct a legal stop-and-frisk, an officer must have reasonable suspicion that a person is involved in criminal activity or believe he or she is carrying a weapon. In that case, the officer can pat down the person over their clothing. The problem, says Tolliver, is that many times the suspect is cleared of any wrongdoing and is freed to walk away. “So it makes you wonder what criteria law enforcement is using to stop people,” she says.

Still, some see the potential for such workshops to backfire. Eugene O’Donnell, a former police officer and professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told the New York Post that the workshops give the impression that the police are “public enemy No. 1.” He said, “It’s unlikely that a high school student would come away with any other conclusion than the police are a fearful group to be avoided at all costs.”

Ed Mullins, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, also added, “Education is the key, but are Civil Liberties going in with an agenda or to educate? I think we deserve equal time and should have the opportunity to follow up with the same platform to explain exactly what police do and what we think is the best way to deal with the police.”

Controversial high school courses aren’t new. In April, as part of a critical thinking assignment, the Rialto Unified School District in California asked 2,000 eighth-grade students to write essays debating whether the Holocaust was “an actual event in history, or merely a political scheme created to influence public emotion and gain wealth.” After national backlash from parents and The Anti-Defamation League, the school apologized for its “horribly inappropriate assignment.” In March, a school district in North Carolina, voted to keep in its curriculum “The House of Spirits,” a New York Times bestseller that discusses rape, prostitution, torture, and abortion, even after parents complained. And in February 2013, students at San Diego’s South Bay School took a firearms safety course which included using a simulator in class and visiting a gun range.