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9486 in the collection
Federal Court Defendants Joel Klein & Ray Kelly: Our Education Mayor remains silent about police abuses of students in public schools
Hentoff, who for decades has
chronicled school abuses, says that not until
the Bloomberg/Klein regime has he seen such
flagrant dereliction of accountability at the
very top of the school system for frequent
abuse of students by police agents.
By Nat Hentoff
While Joel Klein was among those being
seriously considered by Barack Obama for
Secretary of Education—Chicago Superintendent
Arne Duncan won out—a civil rights complaint,
demanding a jury trial, was filed in U.S.
District Court here. The defendants include
Chancellor Klein, Police Commissioner Kelly,
the City of New York, and School Safety Agent
Daniel O'Connell. The plaintiff is Carlos Cruz,
father of Stephen Cruz, an 11th-grade student
at Robert F. Kennedy Community High School in
Flushing, Queens.
Klein is a defendant in the lawsuit, which was
filed by attorney Jeffrey Rothman, because he
"is and was at all times, the Commissioner of
Education . . . and is responsible, in whole or
in part, for the creation . . . and enforcement
of the policies and practices . . . herein. He
is sued individually and in his official
capacity."
I have reported often here on the documented
abuses of students, and even some teachers, by
the School Safety Agents deployed in this
city's schools under Kelly, Klein, and Michael
Bloomberg (the latter two praised around the
country as champions of "school reform"). Since
the 1950s, I've written in columns and books on
our schools—and their chancellors from the
worst to the best. But not until the
Bloomberg/Klein regime have I seen such
flagrant dereliction of accountability at the
very top of the school system for frequent
abuse of students by police agents. This
Stephen Cruz case will be followed in next
week's column by the even more outrageous
treatment of 16-year-old Rohan Morgan at
Hillcrest High School in Queens.
Teaching fear of the police is part of the
curriculum in the school system—of which
Bloomberg is so proud that he is striving (with
the help of the City Council) to control the
schools permanently.
On September 19, 2008, Stephen Cruz entered one
of the stalls in the second-floor bathroom of
his school and, as he leaned over to unbuckle
his pants, School Safety Agent Daniel O'Connell
—known as "Robocop" by the students—smashed
open the door without any warning, let alone
justification, cutting Stephen's head below the
hairline. Bleeding, dizzy, the lump on his head
swelling, Cruz showed his blood to the
attacker, who said, "That's life. It will stop
bleeding"—and left to do his safety rounds. A
fellow student in the bathroom helped Cruz to
the principal's office to get medical help.
Cruz's parents were called to the school and
told by the principal that since "Robocop" was
an employee of the NYPD, he had no power to
discipline the SWAT man.
But why had O'Connell knocked down the door?
Stephen's father kept trying to find out, but
was told that the Safety Agent didn't even have
to submit a report to school officials. His
immediate boss was School Safety Agent
Supervisor Anthony Pelosi at the 107th
Precinct. The impotent principal did schedule a
meeting at the precinct to discuss the
violence, but Pelosi abruptly canceled it—with,
of course, no explanation.
Rothman said (as reported by the New York Civil
Liberties Union, which has been trying to teach
Klein and Bloomberg the Bill of Rights for
years, concerning these cases): "It is
appalling that the system is so broken that the
only way for a parent to stand up for his son—
and to prevent the same things from happening
to other children—is to file a lawsuit and an
Internal Affairs complaint." He added: "We
shouldn't need attorneys to hold this man
accountable for his shocking misconduct."
But not only Robocop should be held
accountable. (Place your bets on whether he'll
even be chided in an NYPD Internal Affairs
"investigation.") Where was the chancellor of
this city's public school students? Where was
the Education Mayor? Not shocked—and not heard
from.
If there are civics classes in our schools,
then teachers—despite any fear of retaliation
from the chancellor—should be reading to
students from Rothman's suit during the
testing-for-tests time of the No Child Left
Behind Act: "School Safety Agent Daniel
O'Connell, acting under color of law and
without lawful justification, intentionally,
maliciously, and with a deliberate indifference
to—or a reckless disregard for the natural and
probable consequences—caused injury and damage
in violation of the plaintiff's constitutional
rights . . ."
As for the creepy cover-up, the lawsuit
continues: "By their conduct and actions in
covering up the conduct and actions of the
School Safety Agent," the other culpable
defendants include "Raymond Kelly and Joel
Klein," who also scorned the constitutional
rights of Stephen Cruz. This lawsuit—and others
are coming—also focuses on the failure "to
properly train, screen, supervise, or
discipline" O'Connell and others in that chain
of command. Most clearly accountable for that
failure is, of course, Police Commissioner
Kelly. Aside from what your flack may conjure
up, what say you directly, Commissioner?
Even more ultimately responsible for not
bringing accountability and badly needed
discipline to all of the potential defendants
in this and other such lawsuits is the New York
City Council leadership.
As I've detailed in previous columns, the
Student Safety Act, which has long been before
the council, would finally compel transparency
and accountability for these and other police
practices in the schools. Only 28 of the 51
council members support the Act, but there has
yet to be even a hearing. Council member
Melissa Mark-Viverito, a co-sponsor of the
Student Safety Act, emphasizes: "What happened
to Stephen is a disturbing reminder of the deep
flaws in our Student Safety model. Ensuring
students' safety is not a controversial matter.
We all want safe schools, and this bill helps
us meet that goal."
Of all big school systems in the country, only
in New York does student safety also have to be
protected from agents of the police. Why is
there no hearing on the bill by the City
Council? In the past, I've blamed Speaker
Christine Quinn, but I now know that blocking
this peril to the safety of students,
especially in mainly black and Hispanic
schools, is Queens Councilman Peter Vallone
Jr., chairman of the Public Safety Committee, a
majority of whose members support the Student
Safety Act. Mr. Vallone has yet to respond to
my calls to him and to his aides.
An assistant has told investigative reporter
Vladic Ravich of the Queens Chronicle that
there aren't enough funds for the Civilian
Complaint Review Board to handle the additional
casework of parent complaints about the
Robocops among the Safety Agents. To hell with
these parents and their children?! Vallone has
two daughters in the public schools. I guess
they're safe, too.
School Safety Agent O'Connell is now patrolling
a middle school nearby.
— Nat Hentoff
Village Voice
2008-12-31
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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