Legal or Not... Your Thoughts Please

[Bruzilla]

I told the detectives that I had no problem with them asking my son questions about what he might have heard about who committed a crime without me being there. If the interview had been "We've asked you to come in because we were told that you might know who was involved with the vanadalism at the elementary school, so what can you tell us?" I would have had no issue at all, and this was the way that the interview was initially related to me. However that was not the case.

A 16-yr old, or younger, child, especially one with no experience with the law or an understanding of their legal rights, does not have the ability to know that their legal rights are being violated. They just do what they are told by the school officials and the police officers without question. I'm sure that if my son were a thug, with numerous run-ins with the police, he would be much more aware of his rights, but that was not the case here and the police tried to exploit that ignorance and that's just not right.

As for being a Repub and wanting police to take actions to solve crimes, I expect them to also respect the rights of the suspect and in the case of a minor the "rights" of the parent. Also this was not a case of an immediate threat to life and limb, it was an investigation into theft and property damage that occured close to a month ago. There was no reason that the police couldn't come to our home and ask their questions in my presence. The schools have received a blessing from the Supreme Court to limit 4th Ammendment protections to search and seizure, but I haven't heard anything about skirting the 5th.

I guess what really bothers me is this is just one more case of the government thinking its needs and "rights" are above mine as a parent, and that just plain pisses me off.

 

[willie]

My only experience with this type of situation is from watching "Law and Order" but common sense would dictate that a parent should be present as soon as any question of guilt is made. If the parent was not hysterical and the kid was honest, I see no problem with any of those questions. If the cop was a real assjerk then the parent may see the need for a lawyer. Maybe you should check into the friends your kid has and if a few are a bit marginal, this experience might do some good.

 

[Bruzilla]

But what Im gettin at, is why at 16, if you didnt do it, why do you need representation?? I dont understand that...Im 21, bout to be 22....Im just askin..I mean, in my mind, I dont think you need representation at 16 for something you didn do...

Because what if you had done something, and you confess it during an interview like this? That causes a ton of problems because more than likely if the confession is challenged it will be inadmissable so the cops just blew a big chance to get a conviction. Also, guilty or innocent makes no difference. The police should not have an ability to take a minor child into a room and interogate him/her without any third-party advocate present. That's just not the way our legal system works. Lastly, it's not just about your rights as an innocent minor, its also about the powers of your parents and a violation of the powers of the government.

In my case my son is innocent and the cops have no further interest in him, yet He was brought in, accused of the crime, and then the cops lied to his Dad about what was said. These two azzholes just took a good kid who would freely and truthfully answer questions asked by any adult and forced him to distrust the motivations of any cop who asks him anything. So what's the good in that?

 

[Otter]

Also this was not a case of an immediate threat to life and limb, it was an investigation into theft and property damage that occured close to a month ago. .

Thats the gist of it right there, law or no law, cops should not be allowed to use a school to question minors about events that took place a month ago. I don't have a problem with the cops asking questions in the immediate aftermath of a crime, be it at school, the mall or whatever, but going to a school to question a minor about something a month old is beyond the pale.

 

[Ken King]

But what Im gettin at, is why at 16, if you didnt do it, why do you need representation?? I dont understand that...Im 21, bout to be 22....Im just askin..I mean, in my mind, I dont think you need representation at 16 for something you didn do...

Because as stated it started off as asking about "we heard that you heard" and went into a mode of inquiry as to if the child actually did it, thus a situation where you better get your ducks in a row because you are now a suspect. I've had experiences with the same type of things happening to my son when he was under 16 and the relatively harmless questions progressed to outright accusations and intimidation. And throughout the process he was neither arrested nor advised of his rights. As a parent it is up to us to educate our children to protect them from being railroaded by these tactics and for me it has nothing to do with appearing quilty but one of protection from this type of crap.

 

[Softballkid]

Well something else to think about...is everyone thinks there kid/child is an angel, never does anything wrong....there were many times that myself, or people I hung out with would break laws, an not get caught...even though I hung out with a decent crowd, we still did dumb sh*t...its part of growing up....but, with this, its a hit or miss subject....I mean, I understand where yall are commin from on that its not right....but Ive seen even today, a 25 yr old gets pressured by cops to tell them what they want to know... its not that they did it because of his age....Im sure it had a lil to do with it, but thats what cops do, they want there answers.... I know about 7-8 cops, an they all same the same thing, age is just a number, it doesnt matter if your 10 or 50, we will ask you what we want how we want whether your lawyer is there or not to find out information.....

I mean, I just think that the cops did what they should of done, but at the same time, I can understand where the parent is commin from

 

[vraiblonde]

I agree with Otter - that's horseshit. The fact that the cop tried to lie to you should be grounds for disciplinary action right there. Go after them, Bru - I'd have been pissed as hell and I wouldn't let it go either.

 

[Makavide]

The law on confessions -
Judicial experts agree that confessions are the single most powerful evidence in a criminal trial.
The law allows police to lie about evidence during an interrogation.

A detective may tell a suspect that his fingerprints were found or that a witness saw him at the crime scene or that he failed a lie-detector test, even if none of it is true.

Police must not, however, make promises of leniency in exchange for a confession or threaten harsh treatment if a suspect fails to talk. And, once a suspect is placed under arrest, he must be read his Miranda rights: the rights to remain silent and to have an attorney present.

 

[dustin]

I'd be pissed too BRuzilla. Orange Park and Middleburg High are soooo goofed up. And the Clay County School Board are mostly a bunch of jerks with personal agendas.

Not to mention I have had run-in's with Clay County cops and know people that have and although there are some that are decent it seems the majority are ummm...undisciplined emotionally.

 

[Bruzilla]

Ok... I went to the school yesterday amd met with the School Resource Officer, a very nice deputy who was a detective for three years before taking the SRO job, and who was present during the interogation. I also talked to the principal. I had asked to see the principal and the school secretary tried to blow me off by saying she could arrange a meeting in a day or two, and I told her that "if I have to wait till tommorrow I won't need to talk to him because he'll be busy talking to reporters from the Florida Times Union. Now I don't know your boss, but if I were him, and I was about to get clobbered by reporters, I would want to know about it sooner than later". She tracked the principal down but he was off-site, but she got me a meeting with the senior vice-principal shortly thereafter.

The first thing that got my attention was when I told the SRO what the detective had told me the first time on the phone, that being the nature of the meeting, he briefly snickered. I asked him if his reaction indicated that their meeting had gone beyond just obtaining information and he quickly and adamently corrected me that he had had nothing to do with the interview and that all he had done was arrange the meeting for the detective and was just sitting in the room doing his regular work. I found that interesting. For the record, the interview occured in the SRO's office, a little 10X10FT room with no windows and just enough room for a desk, file cabinet, and two chairs.

I was able to confirm through the SRO that the detective had in fact lied to me about the nature of the interview, and that the guy had tried to get my son to confess to something by asking a lot of leading questions. The SRO told me that based on what he was overhearing from my son, and what my son's reactions were, my son had nothing to do with the incident and so I had nothing to worry about. I told him that I had no worry about my son being involved, and that I was there because of the actions of the Sheriff's Office and not those of my son.

The next interesting thing I heard was in response to my asking if my son had been read his rights or advised that he could leave or request a parent of school official, and the SRO said no. When I asked why this was I was told "every kid knows what their rights are... they see that on TV all the time!" Can you believe this??? I told the SRO that my son doesn't spend much time watching crime dramas or Cops, and has never had any dealings with the police, so, like many kids, he doesn't know these things that the police are abliged to inform him of. Can you imagine a court being told that a suspect wasn't read his rights because "everyone knows them from watching TV"? I really have to wonder how many kids have been convicted based on illegal confessions like this?

The next big thing I heard came when I went to leave the SRO and talk to the vice-principal. The SRO implied that talking to the school admin would be a waste of time as "no one in the administration was informed of the detective being there." I found out that there is no requirement for the police to inform anyone at the school that a non-SRO police officer is on the premises, or pulling students for questioning.

Talking to the vice-principal confirmed that the agreement the school district has with the CCSO is that a "street" officere can come in without notice, pull any child they want and do pretty much anything they want with them, provided the parent is informed "before, during, or after" the meeting, which means unless the child objects the informing comes only after the meeting. He showed me two examples of a police visit, and they involved an officer believing that a student is holding drugs and needs to apprehend the student as quickly as possible, and the other was when a student was suspected of having a weapon... two cases where I fully agree that a cop should be able to take immediate action without parental consent. But there was nothing about using the school as a 5th Ammendment "free zone" where students can be called in and interrogated about non-immediate crimes without being informed of their rights. I told the vice-principal that in my opinon the CCSO is using his school as a place where they can browbeat kids in a manner that they couldn't do at their homes with their parents present. The gal started sweating at this point, and started making calls to the folks who put together the agreement. She promised me that she would give my son a full copy of the agreement to bring home to me yesterday, but when he got home she hadn't given him anything. I'll be calling her today if he comes home empty handed again.

 

[kwillia]

Keep on 'em, Bru...

 

[Bruzilla]

Part II

So what I learned was the following:

1. Parents in most states do not need to be informed prior to a police officer interviewing them in the event of an immediate crime.
2. There is apparently no oversight, at least in FL, as to what the police are really doing in the schools... but hopefully I'll be changing that.
3. The SRO told me that there's a legally right way to do things, and a morally right way, and what happened to my son was legally but not morally right... sounds like a case for change to me.

One last thing I found telling. I was asked to wait to see the vice-principal because she had cafeteria monitor duties and she had to locate someone to take her place. The VP called the secretary twice and told her to tell me that she was sorry for the delay and that she would be with me as soon as she got someone to assume her duties, but during the first call the secretary told her that I was there about an incident with a police interview. After waiting 15 minutes I got up to stretch and noticed that the door to the SROs office, that I had left open, was now closed. I hadn't seen the SRO leave, and I walked to the window overlooking the parking lot and saw that the deputy's cruiser was still there. I changed seats so that I could see the SRO's door, and when it opened a woman came out and walked briefly down the hall away from the lobby. Then she turned around and came back towards the lobby and introduced herself as being the VP. She had lied to me about needing to find a replacement and had infact been trying to get her ducks in a row with the SRO the whole time.

 

[Ken King]

Have you instructed your youth that he needs to say those magic words of "I want a lawyer" when faced with a situation like this and to not say a damn thing to whomever is conducting the "interview?

 

[harleygirl]

Totally disgusting, Bruzilla. Get yourself a good lawyer.

 

[Bruzilla]

That subject came up with the SRO yesterday. I told him that I had raised my kids to be respectful of law enforcement, and to always be honest with them. I told them that their friends were wrong when they say that they should never talk to the cops because the police will lie, or try to trick them into saying something. Anytime that my kids have seen something wrong going on they have had no reservations about telling a parent, school official, or police officer about it. In fact there are several deputies who my older kids know as friends who will hang out at out house playing Halo during slow patrol days, and they'll talk to my kids and their friends. I've endorsed this sort of thing as I believe nothing but good can come from my kids and their friends getting to know and trust the police, and the SRO told me that this was a big part of his job.

But then I told him that I could no longer allow my son to be open and honest with the police bssed on what happened on Tuesday, and that this detective had proved to my son that his friends were right about what they had said about the police. I told him he could forget about ever calling my son to his office to ask about anything again unless I was present, and that my son will be refusing to answer any questions to police at the school. I also told the SRO that I would be telling my son's friends to do the same. I told the SRO that I really felt bad about the need to tell kids to act this way, but that the detective's actions had caused this and that he should take the fact that his job just got a lot harder up with the leadership at CCSO.

 

[sleuth]

Way to go Bru!

 

[kom526]

This whole situation is FUBAR and the CCSO and Board of Ed DESERVE to have their policies exposed to the rest of the families in your area. I would contact a lawyer for advice and the press for humiliation.

 

[dustin]

If I were you Bruzilla, I would still be going to the press.

Unless these people involved are hit where it hurts, I'm afraid it will all be forgotten by the end of the quarter.

 

[vraiblonde]

She had lied to me about needing to find a replacement and had infact been trying to get her ducks in a row with the SRO the whole time.

Did you confront her with this? Because, to me, it's not so much that your son was interrogated - what the heck, there was a crime and it might have intimidated him but didn't really hurt him. So I could probably get past that.

The red flags are in all the lies. Why are they lying? The chickenshit VP, is one thing - you don't really expect those kennedys to be any better than they are. But for the cop to lie to you??? That's bullshit and I'd raise all kinds of holy hell.

It aggravates me when teachers and principals go into this CYA mode when confronted by a parent. If they're so ashamed of their actions that they have to lie about it, then they need to explore other career opportunities. Same goes for that cop - cops are supposed to be the good guys, not the ones you have to be careful around.

Keep us posted - this is just outrageous.

 

[Suz]

The thing that has my attention here is the fact that a person other than parent or legal guardian removed your child from the school without your consent. I realize that it was a " police detective", but how sure of this was the VP who allowed your son to be taken? I think you have a case against the Board of Ed for letting your son to be taken from school property without your knowledge or consent.

This whole situation is FUBAR and the CCSO and Board of Ed DESERVE to have their policies exposed to the rest of the families in your area. I would contact a lawyer for advice and the press for humiliation.

The 'interview' took place on school grounds in the SRO's office.

You go Bruzilla! I'll be watching the news in your area!