City schools criticized for arrest, suspension

Overreaction claimed in fake rifle incident


A high-school senior was arrested and suspended from Riverside Institute of Technology for three weeks last month after a Buffalo police officer accused the girl of pointing a fake rifle at her during a Junior ROTC training drill.

The officer later acknowledged she knew the training gun was not real, though her initial arrest report said the student was "capable of causing death or other serious physical injury."

Iesia Huffman, 17, spent the night in the Erie County Holding Center after her arrest April 1 at the end of the school day, separating from her 4-month-old baby, whom she breast-feeds, for more than 24 hours.

Iesia was allowed to return to school Friday, after a hearing officer found her guilty of struggling with Police Officer Valerie Stover-Kelly, who was trying to take her to the office.

Anthony Pendergrass, the family's attorney, said the school system violated the its own and state suspension procedures by failing to provide due process within a reasonable period of time. He also contends it should have done more to help Iesia.

"What happened is a travesty. To throw her life into an uproar like this is inexcusable and incomprehensible," he said.

Will Keresztes, associate superintendent for educational services, said federal privacy rules prevent the school district from commenting on Iesia's case.

The school did not notify Marcella Alexander, Iesia's mother, of the suspension until April 13, when she received a letter sent the previous day, Pendergrass said. School district policy requires the family to be notified within 24 hours of a student's removal.

The late letter, Pendergrass said, meant the family did not have an opportunity to request an informal conference with the superintendent or his designee within 48 hours. (Suspensions of more than five days are handled by the superintendent, not the principal.)

The attorney said the school district also failed to ensure that Iesia receives after-school instruction. Pendergrass said she was unable to attend because of responsibilities as a mother. He said the school attempted but failed to arrange homework for her when it had the responsibility to do so. No one from the district, Pendergrass said, inquired about her.

City Hall hearing

In a written response about alternative instruction in general, Keresztes said all suspended students are provided two hours of after-school instruction that is "affixed to all correspondence." Administrators were "not specifically required" to contact parents when students are absent from their alternative instruction assignment, he said, although many make efforts to do so.

Iesia's course load at Riverside, one of the city's lowest-performing schools, includes precalculus and chemistry courses.

Iesia and her mother declined to comment for this article, saying through their attorney that they wanted to put the incident behind them.

"Iesia wants to be in school and do what is necessary to graduate and graduate on time," Pendergrass said. "She doesn't believe she deserved any of what she has been confronted with since April 1."

Samuel L. Radford III, vice president of the District Parent Coordinating Council, said the school district let Iesia down.

"The criminal charge was pointing a weapon at an officer. The officer admitted in the hearing she knew she was under no threat. This was really all about the fact that a police officer was angry because she didn't like the way the girl responded to her," Radford said. "Someone should have stood up for this student."

Iesia, 17, was arrested April 1, a Friday, returned to school the following Tuesday and was told Wednesday she had been suspended retroactive to Friday. The principal told her to leave the school grounds immediately, even though she did not have a bus pass to get home, according to Pendergrass.

Here is what happened, according to a taped recording of the disciplinary hearing that Cherita Johnson-Morrow, a hearing officer and school district employee, conducted last Monday in City Hall:

On April 1, near the end of the school day, Iesia was participating in a Junior ROTC drill with several other students and one or possibly two instructors in a school hallway.

Stover-Kelly, the student resource officer, and Daniel Ahern, a security guard, entered the hallway with a student they were escorting to the assistant principal's office.

Under cross-examination by Pendergrass, Stover-Kelly said she saw Iesia pointing and following her with the simulated, wooden rifle. Ahern later would say in the hearing that he didn't notice her. Both the officer and the security guard would testify they were used to seeing JROTC officers drilling in the hallway and knew the fake rifles were inoperable.

Returning several minutes later from the assistant principal's office and ignoring a JROTC instructor, Stover-Kelly confronted Iesia. Using profanity, she accused the girl of pointing the simulated rifle at her.

Stover-Kelly said her purpose was informational. "I informed her -- it was not a threat, it was information -- that the next time she pointed a gun at a police officer, [be] prepared to get shot," Stover-Kelly said she told the girl.

Iesia, using profanity back, said she did nothing wrong, asked the officer to leave her alone and turned away. Stover-Kelly then put her hands on the girl to take her to the principal's office.

In a matter of moments, Iesia was on the ground, handcuffed and placed under arrest. Ahern said Iesia "pulled and pushed" Stover-Kelly, leading to her arrest. Iesia's version was not offered at the hearing, which was to give her attorney the chance to question her accusers, but Pendergrass claims she told Stover-Kelly to "take your [expletive] hands off of me," but did not physically interfere with the officer.

sh 'They are weapons' In the hearing, Pendergrass repeatedly challenged Stover-Kelly's assertion that the simulated rifle, incapable of firing bullets, could be used as a weapon.

Stover-Kelly insisted it still was "a dangerous instrument."

"They are weapons," she said.

Pendergrass pursued the issue. "If you felt you were under any threat for loss of life or limb, you would have pulled your weapon, and you would have trained it on her because that's what you're trained to do as a Buffalo police officer, right?" Pendergrass said. "In this instance, you knew you were not under a threat from an operable weapon because you kept going."

"I did keep going," Stover-Kelly said.

That differs from the police report. Stover-Kelly claimed the defendant was "readily capable of causing death or other serious physical injury" and that she was "in fear of imminent serious physical injury by means of a dangerous instrument."

Iesia was charged with obstructing governmental administration, disorderly conduct and menacing. Her case will be heard May 26 in City Court.

Stover-Kelly also conceded under questioning that she didn't know whether Iesia was participating in a drilling exercise or whether a teacher had directed her to point the simulated rifle in Stover-Kelly's general direction.

The officer defended using profanity to a student. "There's no language that these kids don't hear every single day. .‚.‚. I can use the same language they use at me," Stover-Kelly said. Later, she said cursing at teenagers "comes with the job."

Pendergrass said later that he found those remarks by Stover-Kelly, who is African-American, offensive. "I think it was a comment that said these black kids are to be spoken to in this way and was nothing other than a stereotypical view of these kids," he said.

Violation claimed

Though not discussed in the hearing, Iesia said that while cuffed she was taken into a nearby room, pushed up against a wall and briefly choked by Stover-Kelly after she continued insisting she had done nothing wrong, according to Pendergrass.

Iesia also claimed that when Buffalo Police Officer Juan Phillips arrived to help transport her, he grabbed her arm and, when she said police officers shouldn't be putting their hands on her, Phillips placed his hands around her throat and said he could do that whenever he wanted and there was nothing she could do about it, Pendergrass said.

Iesia said Assistant Principal Laura Samulski was in the room and said nothing, the attorney said.

Radford said the police officer's intervention violated an agreement between the district and the police, which allows officers to intervene in a public school where violence or a crime is being committed, or at the request of a teacher or administrator.

In this case, he said, no administrator or teacher asked for the police officer's help.

"If the police officer felt the student was doing something inappropriate, the first conversation should have been between the police officer and the teacher who is providing supervision for the class. That was where the first violation occurs," Radford said. "Now, you're saying [with this decision] that you are letting Buffalo police officers let loose in the Buffalo Public Schools. For all intents and purposes, we have turned our educational institutions into precorrectional institutions monitored by armed police officers."

In a written statement, Keresztes defended school resource officers and, referring specifically to Iesia's case, denied that any inappropriate behavior against her.

"School resource officers are trusted and valued members of our school communities. There is no such policy restricting their interactions with students -- nor should there be," Keresztes said.

"The family's claim of physical abuse between police and a Buffalo Public School student is unfounded. District staff who were present also confirm that allegations of such conduct are completely untrue."


http://www.buffalonews.com/city/article410135.ece


BTW-this is the high school my daughter graduated from.

I'd LOVE to hear from the AFJROTC instructors on this one!! They were great guys, and I' sure there's much more to this than the cop is saying.