Consider this: A 17-year-old male is walking to school when, with the school in sight, a police officer stops him and asks him where he’s going. The youth says school. The officer says he has to drive him there – standard procedure for dealing with truants. When the kid refuses, he is handcuffed, put into the car, and driven to school.
There is no doubt that there has to be a mechanism for dealing with truancy. I’m just not sure this is it. And neither is Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim, who will be apologizing to the young man “because we didn’t have a process in place that would alleviate the situation without the need to handcuff the young man.”
What say you? Should the police be enforcing the truancy policy? If so, should it include driving the kids to school? And if not, who should be responsible?
Inquiring minds want to know 😉
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Was it reasonable for a cop seeing a kid that time of morning to believe he was a truant? Probably, as it was later than normal for someone to be going to school.
However, Norfolk now looks awful from the mistake. Paul Fraim’s mantra of “procedure was followed” every time the city makes a snafu is getting bizarre. (Same thing he did with shuttering the bars at Waterside.)
Finally, Virginia Beach has NOT enforced truancy policy. In fact, when the Community Manager of our apartment complex once called 3rd Precinct about some kids here skipping school, she was told Virginia Beach didn’t even have a truancy policy. Nice if they’ve finally gone there.
bizarre is certainly the word. Why would anyone, police or otherwise, stop and question an obviously older teen walking on a sidewalk in broad daylight? If he’d been on a skateboard, speeding along the pedestrian way, or had been staggering or in someway in need of help then some sort of intervention might have been appropriate.
very strange.
One wonders if a white child would have been treated with such disrespect. This is an example of a long list of police exerting abusive behavior toward Arican Americans in a way we all know would not be used toward white people. This continued culture of over-use of police powers, at times deadly toward Blacks, has created this attitude of resistance toward police authority from the Black community especially from its young people. This has been a fact of life for Blacks dating back to the Colonial times. Whites scratch their head at this reality, often supporting police when there is a disruptive encountere between them and Black citizens. Sensitivity training may help, but police, who seem to be scared to death of Black people, especially males, must stop looking at Blacks, especially men not as monsters, but human beings, like they tend to treat whites, who also act hostile toward police when they feel they are being treated unfairly.
Between the fall of 2008 and the end of the school year in 2009, Norfolk School enrollment dropped by 3144 students. Not only that, but the triennial census said there were 38,000+ school age children that same year, only 34448 were enrolled that fall.
If the cops really wanted to enforce truancy, they would be picking up kids left and right every day, all day.
I’m not going to judge this situation, but I’ve been passed by cops numerous times walking down Botetourt Ave to and from Maury all the time when I was deliberately skipping school or just overslept. I never once got stopped, I even came to school late during a lockdown when a gun was found in school and the cops let me in the front door…
I have to agree with Black Man in Norfolk. I really wonder if the same protocol would have been followed if this had been an individual of any other race. Sadly, in the year 2010 institutional racism is alive and well.
I don’t think any teenager (or anyone for that matter) would want to be taken to school in a police car.
I don’t know if police should be enforcing the truancy problem but am not sure what the best course of action should be. I consider this to be the schools responsibility.
I think your school division’s truancy policy has jumped the shark when it results in a student being put in handcuffs. For truancy? Really? Even if the kid was a truant that goes too far.
If the police were following the truancy law as it is written, then it is the letter of the law that is the problem and the truancy law should be rescinded.
There is no reason why you should be treated like a criminal for walking down the street. This is a further example of our country criminalizing ordinary activity.
Geez. Issue the kid a summons like it’s a curfew violation and send him on his way.
In general, this adds to the impression that Norfolk needs a stem-to-stern reexamination of its laws and enforcement procedures regarding public behavior–starting with the public schools’ environ-
ment. In specific, ordinary public safety officers should not be dealing with truancy unless the truant is involved in possibly committing a crime. Taking a student to school in a police car should require clear, supervisory authorization and explanation. A public explanation of this recent episode is in order–as to why the officer picked him up in the first place. Let’s hope it’s a simple answer, and move on after it’s made public.
ProudVADem & Bl;ack man in Norfolk:
Virginia authorities apparently have a legitimate reason for stopping black men on the street. According to today’s Washington Post article (http://wapo.st/i9TKce) about all the intelligence (sic) centers being established around the country, Sons of the Confederacy officials masquerading as spies have learnt a thing or two after collecting the data:
“In Virginia, the state’s fusion center published a terrorism threat assessment in 2009 naming historically black colleges as potential hubs for terrorism.”
Does this really surprise anyone?
Say WHAT?
Read the article: http://wapo.st/i9TKce. In addition, we learn that intelligence officials are being trained by groups that believe American Muslims want to establish Sharia law. (The “Sons of the Confederacy” was sarcasm.)
Are ALL of the people who post on this blog just pretend people, or only ninety percent?
Max, you don’t seem to exist, other than on a website.
Silence Do…we know you are a fantasy.
And the rest of the pretend posters…Are they all just voices in VPees’ head?
Why does anyone give a happy howyadoin’ about some punk who got a free ride to school from the cops? At least that was one less cop slowing down everyone’s morning commute.
Interesting that your IP address has been used here before.
Please refer to the comment policy and refrain from attacking others here.
Well…at least there wasn’t a SWAT callout for the kid.
The cuffs seem like overkill. Though the escort to school seems reasonable.
The young man deserves a public apology from the Mayor and hope this episode does not result in a criminal record for him. It is a big deal when police can just cuff you because you were a young black man walking.