Georgia Middle School Student Sues School District Over Marijuana Strip Search

ATLANTA — A Georgia middle school student claimed in a lawsuit Wednesday he was humiliated and traumatized when he was brought to a vice principal's office and forced to strip in front of classmates who said he had marijuana.

The student, then in the seventh-grade, said he still suffers from emotional distress because his classmates taunted him by calling him Superman, the underwear he was wearing when he was strip-searched. The student is suing the Clayton County school district for unspecified punitive and compensatory damages.

Clayton County school officials didn't immediately respond to requests for comment about the lawsuit, filed in federal court.

The student, identified in court documents as D.H., said officials at Eddie White Academy initially strip-searched three other students on Feb. 8, 2011, after suspecting they had marijuana. One of them accused D.H. of having drugs, and he was brought to then-vice principal Tyrus McDowell's office.

While the three classmates watched, D.H.'s pockets and book bag were searched but didn't find anything, the lawsuit said. One of the students told school officials he had lied about D.H. having drugs, but administrators continued the search as D.H. begged to be taken to the bathroom for more privacy, according to the lawsuit.

D.H. was ordered to strip and again, no drugs were found.

"The strip searches were done intentionally, willfully, wantonly, maliciously, recklessly, sadistically, deliberately, with callous indifference to their consequences," according to the lawsuit, which also names as defendants the county's sheriff's department and Ricky Redding, the school's resource officer.

The student's attorney, Gerry Weber, said a 2009 U.S. Supreme Court ruling found school officials can't perform even a partial strip search of a student, even if they have probable cause.

Weber also litigated a case nearly a decade ago in which the federal appeals court in Atlanta found that a mass strip search of Clayton County students was unconstitutional because it violated their Fourth Amendment rights, which protect against an unreasonable search and seizure.

"This is like deja vu," said Weber. "It is simply beyond belief that students are still being stripped naked in the Clayton County schools."

Redding, who was also accused in the complaint of being involved in the search, was fired about a month later, the lawsuit said. McDowell was placed on administrative leave before subsequently resigning.

Redding declined to comment and McDowell could not be reached.

The student's mother, Angela Dawson, said her son still hasn't recovered.

"This situation has broken the very foundation of my child's education because in order for him to learn, he has to believe that what schools are trying to teach him is right and now he questions them after they stripped him of his clothes and dignity," she said. "His trust is broken."

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Comments

[DudeMan6511]

04:49 PM on 02/22/2012

This is considered a sexual assault back here in Texas and the offending administrator would be arrested, charged, and subsequently - 'tagged' forever as a sexual preditor.

While you might not agree with this, the question begs to be answered; why did a grown person ask a child to take off their clothes in front of them? The simple answer isn't 'drugs' - but rather, because they enjoyed it. They need to be arrested for being a sexual preditor - period.

[Jeremy Echols]

11:27 PM on 02/21/2012

Oh, the horrors we'll unleash in the name of keeping our kids "clean".

[HypnoDave]

06:09 PM on 02/20/2012

I am disappointed that the morals and ethics of our country once again appear to be declining before improving. Much less that there was no consideration, concern, caring or compassion from the Assistant Principal. Where was common sense in this scenario? Please inform the mother of the traumatized student to have a trauma reversal done for her son by a Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist or CMS-CHT as soon as possible. This won't remove the memory for DH but will assist in removing the intensity of this humiliating & sensitizing event.

[silverfang77]

02:40 PM on 02/20/2012

This is why I'm against hierarchy. Teaching children that they are subordinate to adults leads to a culture that permits their molestation and gives them no way to fight back.

[Truthseeker55]

01:33 PM on 02/20/2012

I am not proud to admit it but I would probably be going to jail over this. Someone at that school, and probably multiple individuals, would catch a serious beat down if they did that to my kid.

[AndrewBurd]

09:03 AM on 02/28/2012

you wouldn't be convicted if I was on the jury.

[Hypnos Rises]

01:32 PM on 02/20/2012

Vice principal Tyrus McDowell is a child predator. He should be placed in the database, and be in no area where children are.

[Will737]

10:18 AM on 02/17/2012

To me, this AP report reminds me of the same journalistic quality that was contained in the AP report that "Being A Hooter Girl Helped Me Become A Tennessee State Representative" that article being exclusively copied from that bastion of journalistic excellence, Hooter Magazine.

This article is copied almost exclusively from the mouth of ambulance chaser Gerry Weber, who you can imagine has a huge financial incentive to deceive you. Check out the huge difference between what he says and what Stafford United School District v. Redding actually says. Remember in Redding the SCOTUS let the "strip searchers" off.

[Puck342]

11:42 AM on 02/19/2012

Are you kidding me?

Forget what he said, if the facts of the situation are that a student in the 7th grade (who would be 12 or 13 years of age) was stripped down to his underwear, IN FRONT OF CLASSMATES, is absolutely, positively reprehensible.

Schools strip searching children is disgusting and ridiculous to me in general, but doing so based on purely circumstantial evidence; not that the victim was clearly intoxicated, or had been seen smoking ANYTHING, just the words of some other 12 or 13 year olds, one of whom recanted....

I have a sister who is 15, and the thought of her 2 years ago being strip searched because of what some other kids in her grade just said about her....makes my blood boil.

but maybe getting caught up on who the attorney is and the particulars of the previous SCOTUS court ruling at issue is is the more pressing issue at hand

[bjvom]

11:24 AM on 02/21/2012

Whether or not the lawyer is an "ambulance chaser" is irrelevant. In Stafford v. Redding in an 8-1 ruling written by Justice David Souter, the Court held that the search violated the student's Fourth Amendment rights. (The idiot, Clarence Thomas opined that since her parents sent her to public school she had given up her rights!) The justices were split as to whether or not the school could be sued. In other words, they were guilty but they were accorded "qualified immunity" due to a lack of precedent in established law. As that precedent now exists, I believe the school could and should be held liable.

[Will737]

10:11 AM on 02/17/2012

I wonder if anyone knows that there may be extraneous political overtones regarding Ricky Redding going on in this whole matter. See http://www.henryherald.com/news/2011/jul/07/former-deputy-denies-strip-search-allegations/

[Will737]

10:11 AM on 02/17/2012

Stafford United School District v. Redding would appear to control here. There underlings were let off. In fact the US Supreme Court even let off the strip search decision maker. See http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/557/08-479/ and/or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safford_Unified_School_District_v._Redding That 2009 case does not outlaw strip searches as ambulance chaser Gerry Weber has said in this article. It requires "reasonable suspicion."

It should be noted that Ricky Redding, who is being sued here, is not a relative of the 13 year old girl in Stafford Unified School District v. Redding [as far as can be told].

[KidLaw Rich]

06:08 PM on 02/20/2012

No, actually, SCOTUS ruled that it was outrageous and unreasonable for the school officials in the California case to have searched the teenager for alleged violations of the drug free school policy (ibuprofen, in that case). But the school officials were not liable for the constitutional violations because they were entitled to qualified immunity because it was not clear BEFORE their actions that this was a fourth amendment violation. (See my blog post at
http://michaelrichlaw.blogspot.com/2009/06/teen-strip-search-ruled.html)

It IS clear now. These Georgia school officials should not get the same break, if the facts are near what the lawsuit alleges.

[Will737]

10:05 AM on 02/17/2012

I wonder if anyone here even knows that the first three of the four "strip searched" had Marijuana found in their drawers. They had been reported by another student. At least one of the three criminals reported this other kid who is suing, only taking it back after a preliminary outer search of him.

[wingnut1]

06:54 AM on 02/17/2012

$$$$$$$$$$$$$

[RENAMED Concerned Parent]

09:51 PM on 02/16/2012

Jesus said to do unto others as we would have them to do unto us. None of us would want our child or grandchild strip searched or thrown in jail with the sexual predators over marijuana. None of us would want to see an older family member’s home confiscated and sold by the police for growing a couple of marijuana plants for their aches and pains.
If the people who want to use marijuana could grow a few plants in their own back yards, it would be about as valuable as home-grown tomatoes; it would put the drug gangs out of business and get them out of our neighborhoods.

[Puck342]

11:46 AM on 02/19/2012

Yeah but then who would fill our prisons if not non-violent drug offenders, none of whom have any effect on the actual drug market? And how would we keep police supervision of colored communities and repression of colored voting demographics that are targeted by our drug laws?
What...would we pay people actual wages, instead of $1.00/hr prison semi-slave labor? That doesn't sound very American to me.
Taking away profits from gangs? Doesn't sound very American to me.

And especially that whole "doing unto others" business, I mean seriously, America would never want to have what it has done to the world done to it, by a LONG shot. In fact, I think that's sort of the guiding light of our foreign policy at the moment...

[Shawn1966]

06:15 PM on 02/16/2012

People we need to start, if you have not already, to teach our kids that they do NOT have to submit to this kind of BS. Both my kids know that if someone at their school needs to search their backpacks and/or to turn out your pockets they will have to comply. However they also know that if someone tried to order them to do a strip search that they have the right to refuse and that if the school tries to force the issue we will back them 100%.

[Gonzo36]

11:58 PM on 02/16/2012

How sad you had to tell your kids that. *sigh*. It would never have occurred to me when I was in high school that I might have to submit to a strip search. But I guess these days they are par for the course.

[Hlynn]

10:15 AM on 02/17/2012

Absolutely! The parents and police should have been called and the police should have taken over from there. No school official--or any adult other than the police--should have the right to tell a students to remove clothing for any reason.

[Will737]

03:41 PM on 02/16/2012

This is probably illegal under Redding even for a "druggie" child at an "Academy" even with a fellow student accusing him. By the way, if you don't know what an "Academy" is look it up. The teacher and administrator already lost their jobs, as they should.

How much harm is done by others knowing that he wears "Superman" underwear. It's nothing. Claiming that it is more is simply just a lie by people who want some money and have been coached by an ambulance chaser.

But you need to punish the School District to some extent because they clearly have not made the rules on searches clear to their administrators/teachers. Giving the kid some money in trust after adulthood only if he graduates highschool and gets himself gainful employment would be a good result, but it won't happen. Impose on the District and on the School Board an affirmative obligation to train employees, but if they do not, millions should go to some appropriate charity or other public agency, not to some lying ambulance chaser.

[Rebecca Diem]

07:45 PM on 02/20/2012

Actually, the stories I've read about this case all state that "DH" has been teased and bullied because of the Superman underwear. Teasing is not "nothing" as you state. It affects the child's ability to learn. It affects the child's self esteem. It is far from nothing to the student being teased and bullied over a pair of Superman underwear.

[suzie tucker]

12:57 PM on 02/16/2012

OMG!!!....What is the world coming to?.....That is such an horrendous thing to do to a child....I think that the teachers and administrators involved, should all be fired, and not allowed to EVER teach anywhere again....

[Will737]

03:13 PM on 02/16/2012

They already lost their jobs.

[PengieP]

07:18 PM on 02/21/2012

They should also lose all their possessions. These creeps should be living on the street.