By Rachel Blevins
Denver, CO – Community members are horrified after they say police officers conducted a classroom-to-classroom search with guns drawn and interrogated teachers and students in a charter school, all to look for a student who was absent.
While the police department released a statement justifying the incident, teachers are claiming that police are lying “to save face.” “The staff and students were traumatized,” Lucas Ketzer, principal at Rise Up Community School, told the Denver Post as he described the way a group of police officers raided the building in their search for a student who was not in attendance.
Officers stormed the school and began searching the classrooms, and Ketzer said that when a science teacher “told officers they could not search her room without a warrant” they pushed her aside, and entered the classroom where they “pulled students out of their chairs, removed their hats and asked them for their IDs as they searched.”
“When I was sitting in class, they came bursting in, and then they were like in everybody’s faces, like looking at us, and I felt so unsafe,” student Mary Jimenez told Padres & Jóvenes Unidos. She said the officers singled one student out, grabbed him by the arm, and forced him to remove his hat so that they could compare him to the photo of the student they were targeting.
The principal also told the Post that the officers scoured the building with their guns drawn and when a faculty member opened a back door to check for students, “multiple officers pointed their guns at her.”
However, when the Denver Police Department released a statement responding to the incident, it claimed that the “officers that were inside, did not draw their weapons at any point during the search for the suspect.”
“On April 24th, 2018, Denver Police officers responded to Rise Up Community School in search of a suspect wanted for attempted first-degree murder—this incident occurred the night before in another metro-area jurisdiction. Officers received information that the suspect was in the school, and given the nature of the allegations, believed the suspect posed a possible threat to students and staff. When officers arrived, they set up outside of the school to ensure the suspect did not leave the building. Given the imminent and potentially dangerous circumstances, and confirmation from a staff member that the suspect was inside, a warrant was not required to search inside the building for the suspect.”
While the statement claimed that police worked “with the principal to eventually gain access to the building,” and then after the raid, “staff met with the principal to discuss the situation and offered a follow-up meeting,” teachers and faculty members at the school are insisting that the opposite is true.
Ketzer told ABC 7 that police “never told him there was any threat,” and when he told the officers that the student they were looking for was not at the school, they refused to believe him and proceeded to search every classroom in the building.
“Those lies put the safety of 100 students at risk and those lies are meant for them to save face. I want people to be held accountable,” Ketzer said. The school principal also noted that the majority of the students at Rise Up Community School came to the charter school after they had struggles at other schools, many of which involved bad experiences with police.
As a result, Ketzer said he is concerned that being interrogated by officers when they were attempting to learn in school, would only serve to further destroy the students’ trust in police. Padres & Jóvenes Unidos is condemning the incident and calling it an example of why police should not be given open access to schools. In a statement, the organization called for an investigation and accused the Denver Police Department of choosing “to put students and teachers in harm’s way.”
“After being informed by the administration that the student was not at school, DPD waited approximately fifteen minutes—during which time they conferred with the DPS Department of Safety—before conducting a search. They refused to produce a warrant when asked, and armed officers went from classroom to classroom harassing students and staff. At one point weapons were drawn on a member of the faculty,” the statement said. Footage of the police raid on the school has yet to be publicly released.
If you would like to contact the Denver Police Department to voice your opinion on this incident, call (720) 913-2000 or visit the department’s Facebook page.
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The thing that is the most troubling to me is that these bludgies probably didn't see anything wrong with what they were doing. On the contrary, they think this type of behavior justified to install a false sense of security. What they don't realize is that, as the students said, they don't feel more secure. They feel threatened by the blue-coats invading their school without a warrant.
It isn't hard to see that police are way out of touch with reality when it comes to public relations. I would guess there are some officers who still believe their job description is to protect and serve even though the SCOTUS has ruled to the contrary. There is a reason why the phrase is in quotations on their cruisers...it's meant to be sarcastic.
"To protect and serve" = protecting special interests and serving the government.
I am pretty sure that the police do not need a warrant to search a govern-cement school building. It is owned by the same people who own the police officers.
Also, it is a public place, as opposed to a private residence.
However, this is the kind of thing those wishing to defend against school shooters wish for. "The police should have done something about the school shooters before they shot up the school." And this is what it looks like.
"govern-cement" hahahaha
This is crazy. When have police ever saved anyone from harm? I know there are those few who genuinely care about their communities and are good people (confused as shit about right and wrong probably but good people nonetheless) but these assholes stick together like vultures and betray the heir fear again and again with actions like this.
A gang of cowards with guns surrounded by children is a dangerous situation. It sounds like maybe they had good reason to be afraid, teenagers with bad experiences with police and one in particular who was hiding from them under some suspicion.
Cops have a dangerous job (no doubt made more so by their own frivolous actions) and should be afraid. But maybe their broken methods don't work in all situations and should be adjusted.
Maybe there are better ways to do everything (except the pizza at Cafe Zorba in Medellin Colombia, that shit is perfect) what the fuck do I know?
I just see a broken system with lunatics at the wheel and the freedom I love being trampled upon at nearly every turn.
Our school system seems designed to create the next generation of cops, prison guards, soldiers and the people they serve/target...preparing kids for prisons, war and our new police state.
Idiocracy, the real life version.
Well said.
I have to re-watch that one. Thanks for the reminder.
What a terrible country. I'd never set foot there, and I was born in South Africa. Our cops are on the other end of the spectrum.. doing anything at all is too much effort for them. Still, I prefer taking my chances with criminals rather than the police state of America
Curated for #informationwar (by @wakeupnd)
Relevance: Exposing the police state.