Birmingham High Schools Allegedly Use Pepper Spray On Students More Than Anywhere Else

After a lawsuit was filed last year on behalf of eight high school students against the Birmingham Board of Education over the use of pepper spray against them at school, one attorney from the Southern Poverty Law Center has uncovered something shocking: they could not find a single school district in the country that uses pepper spray on students as much as Birmingham Schools,The Birmingham News reports.

"We have not ... learned of a single other school district in the country where Mace is used repeatedly and regularly the way it is in Birmingham," Maria Morris, managing attorney of the Montgomery SPLC office, said in a press conference, the report states.

How regularly? SPLC officials say that the frequency had reached about 100 times over the last five years. They argue that the district is violating students' Fourth Amendment rights, WBRC reports.

According to a separate report by The Birmingham News, two students included in the complaint are a 17-year-old girl who was four months pregnant when she was pepper-sprayed, and an 18-year-old girl with a heart murmur.

"It is time that Birmingham school and law enforcement officials are held accountable for their unconstitutional policies so that not one more child suffers this brutal treatment," Ebony Howard, lead attorney on the case for SPLC, told the paper.

According to Howard, the plaintiffs hope to inspire the school system to take action by implementing the following policies:

• A modified policy on the use of pepper spray by school resource officers.
• More comprehensive and extensive training for school resource officers.
• A better selection process for people who become school resource officers.

On Monday, a student at a Bronx high school pepper-sprayed around 20 students and the principal in the afternoon. The school was evacuated for about an hour.

The week before, a 14-year old girl pepper-sprayed her classmates at a Harlem high school, sending nine students to the hospital.

Comments

[Norge]

02:46 PM on 12/11/2011

That is classic violent abuse against children by adults. http://www.amnesty.org

[onrecess]

02:18 PM on 12/10/2011

Hey, c'mon! It is a food product. I hear republicans want it put on the federal school approved vegetables list. These kids should appreciate the caring and concern.

[tstern37]

11:18 AM on 12/10/2011

For anyone who says or think macing kids is okay imagine if it was your child and no one could give you a good enough reason why your 5'5 wt 135 pound daughter gets maced not once but twice for being upset because a 6'5 wt 245 male basketball player assaulted her because she wouldn't talk to him,this is the truth cause it was my daughter .By the way these policemen are suppose to be at the schools protectingthe students and staff and in none of these cases teachers were involved please go to the website SPLC and you will get the correct info

[contrail]

11:07 AM on 12/11/2011

I hope you are pursuing the matter legally.
Bullying behavior is not confined only to children.

[mneff07]

08:55 PM on 12/08/2011

That is beyond a spanking, No mace no pepper spray, none of that. Whats this crap about handcuffs, what the sam hill happpens in that school? Why bwas she thier four months pregnant? Whoa the kids are out of control, and that school is a war zone!

[chris784100]

12:25 PM on 12/08/2011

Sounds like Birmingham kids are a bunch of thugs. Dont act like a punk dont get the pepper. Sit down and shut up dont get the pepper. If your not physically threatening the teacher then you will not get pepper sprayed. Its as simple as that. Kids are as out of control as ever. Parents cant be bothered with actually raising the brats they have they only want to blame society.

[Klaus Baudelaire]

04:31 PM on 12/08/2011

Hmm sit down and shut up. Ask the kids at UC Davis how well that works with police. It's not the teachers that spray them it's the school police that do and I don't care how big and tough some 17 year old kid is any trained cop can take them down without pepperspray.

[chris784100]

01:53 PM on 12/09/2011

Obviously they could restrain most 17yr olds, but some 6-4 kid that weighs 250lbs good luck with that. They pepper spray them so they dont have to injure them. Physically restraining anyone can alway end up injuring the cop or the criminal.

[Giolo Comanche]

12:19 PM on 12/08/2011

No matter how you white folk try to explain how it's our own fault or that we have have it wrong because of afirmative action and Obama in office and how life is so good because we have food stamps and what knot, doesn't mean squat!! You are exposed and it's a matter of time before a voice distinguishes it's self from the posers with truth, and with actual life experience and situations as seen threw there own eye's, not fabrcations of another "angry black man". You white folk have laid my entire foundation for me, and i need do nothing but fire up my web site a spit the truth, and when you tell the truth and people her there pain discribed by a lone stranger, it's captivating to say the least. Not like when white people fabricate lie about the president simply because he is black like they did at an all white ralley with a hanging effigy of my president, and gun toteing white supremist out in the clear open like jom croe days.

[OddPooka2]

06:08 PM on 12/08/2011

Obama's not black, He's half-black & Half-white.
And besides, why are you talking about white people being unfair to black people?
Dude, that was practically a hundred years ago. You have rights now, & you think you can just spit out racism because our anscestors enslaved yours, a long, long, time ago. OK, I know it's a giant deal, no one should be enslaved because of their color. But it's over & done with. So don't think you can just go on random articles, saying white people are cruel to black people, because that was a LONG time ago.

[Giolo Comanche]

03:39 PM on 12/09/2011

Obviously you are stupid as most white folk are when it comes to anything concerning black people in general. I am so insulted and apauled by the out right idiot syndrome you people dislay when trying to side step whats going in todays USA, i feel i just kill up a whole bunch of you and feel nothing!! But lucky for now it's only a thought, but rest assured, i am not the only one ready to snap sucker!! Just like you devils have your hate organizations, we have our resistance just like the jews had underground in ww2. Most Black people are smarter today obviously when it comes to certain things that have to be done . We have former cops, military, government etc, that see things just as i do, please believe it because i've seen, and heard it with own eye's and ears on the DL network sucker!! We are preparing as well.

[Giolo Comanche]

04:10 PM on 12/09/2011

My brother, whom dates a white women was shot at 3 times after leaving a movie with his girlfriend by a couple of good ole white boys just like you sucker!! Thankfully he is still as is his girlfriend. Thankfully as well my uncle is a cop and put us on the plate DL, you can do the math from there. I have a list of racist assualts of not just my family members, but dozens of my friends etc, that have experienced growning racist aggression threw of the country since Obama took office. I guess an effigy of Obama hanging from a stick and burning at an (ALL WHITE RALLEY) with white one guy wearing a pistol is nothing for us half black/all black people to be concerned about . huh moron?

[dmoongo]

12:07 PM on 12/08/2011

Just preparing them for prison . . . their next stop after school.

[Hannah Knise]

12:06 PM on 12/08/2011

Yeah I am kind of confused as to why they used it. I mean while I guess they could be using it just because i think a big chunk of the story was left out as to what the students were doing to get sprayed.

[seabeeutcn]

11:55 AM on 12/08/2011

another irresponsible piece of garbage journalism that serves no purpose other than promoting agendas. why was it important to mention health conditions but not the actions that led them to being sprayed? how many students are in this district in comparison to other districts. why were these students sprayed? most likely they deserved it.

[Allwillseeoneday]

12:11 PM on 12/08/2011

Does this comment relate to the article or is this just being allowed so as to vent frustration with white people?

[Hetneo]

12:11 PM on 12/08/2011

Dude, you have been playing to much of CoD:MW 1,2 and 3. Your whole comment is one pure qualification.

[bbh907]

11:37 AM on 12/08/2011

This article said nothing about WHY these students were pepper sprayed.I'd be very interested in hearing the other side of the story.

[huffmans05]

11:49 AM on 12/08/2011

Thank you ! ! ! The SLANT on the article would make it seem school officials do it for sport.

[Hetneo]

12:14 PM on 12/08/2011

Oh what a horror and liberal propaganda. How dare they to report about law suit and only put what are the reasons behind it.

[Namdoc]

12:34 PM on 12/08/2011

Further it did not say anything about the raceof those sprayed.

[mountainbilly]

11:32 AM on 12/08/2011

Interesting that many are so offended that a kid is pepper sprayed (probably for being violent) but you have no qualms about spraying someone that disagrees with your point of view.

[charlie53]

11:31 AM on 12/08/2011

yea to much pepper spray,start tazing the lil BA#$$$# or use rubber bullets..what else can teachers do when their confronted with out of control students that want to hurt the teachers or other students?

[Giolo Comanche]

11:20 AM on 12/08/2011

We got 911 because white people failed to heed the Obvious. My trade mark saying is " BEWARE OF THE OBVIOUS", case and one point, the middle east. The people over there have an obvious link with black folks and everyone else not and poor, and wanting a better life and a way to (EARN IT)!!! The system in place today is quickly creating a volitile situation because whwen people can't work and feed there kids and families, Just look the news, every theft and crime is not a none caring out of control youth, they are former lawyers, pigs, and everything esle as well out there commiting crime to simply survive. but you white folk pick one or two worst cases and run like reatards in order to keep that boot firmly on the neck, and your fellow white folks believing the none hype.SHAME!!!!!!!!! But with soul or conscience, how can you feel anything but for yourselve's and your money? White people are comming out the closet and voicing racist views openly and on live TV on Major networks and nothing has been done. Well, i am going to change that VIA internet and beyond if possible.

[dkyle78913]

12:51 PM on 12/08/2011

Giolo I think someone has brainwashed you.

[Giolo Comanche]

03:12 PM on 12/08/2011

eat one!

[Allwillseeoneday]

12:52 PM on 12/08/2011

Why is this form of racism against whites allowed on this site?

[jsomers36]

11:18 AM on 12/08/2011

I meant TORTURE in my previous post..my keyboard is very small and I have big fingers. So anybody wanting to nail me on spelling nnnyyaaahhhh!

[Allwillseeoneday]

11:49 AM on 12/08/2011

If one student was assaulting another, would you grab them (TORTURE) physically? Then if that aggressive student turned on you, to attack you, would you defend yourself by hitting (TORTURING) them? Would you run like a scared rabbit to then allow the aggressor to turn attack back on victim? Would you use pepper spray if you had it to assist the victimized student?