Rights Group Accuses Police of Bullying Students
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
The big corps of uniformed Police Department employees that patrols New York’s public schools is too quick to bully students over minor rules infractions, a civil rights group charged in a paper released yesterday.
The New York Civil Liberties Union said that in recent years it has received hundreds of complaints from both students and teachers about foul language, rough treatment and unwarranted arrests by the NYPD’s 4,827 school safety agents.
The group said the agents, whose duties include breaking up fights and operating metal detectors, have also improperly taken on the role of enforcing school rules — like the district’s unpopular ban on iPods and cell phones.
NYPD spokesman Paul Browne called some of the report’s allegations “insulting and baseless.”
