— In New York, the United States District Court upheld the decision of school officials to suspend and arrest a student “for the crime of Falsely Reporting an Incident.” The decision to suspend and arrest arose after another “student (while at school) received an image on her cell phone via AirDrop that appeared to show two guns on a table with the caption: ‘Don’t come to school tomorrow.’” The lawsuit centered around the seizure and search of cell phones. After identifying the identity of the student who AirDropped the image, school officials took and searched his phone. The student argued that the administrator “illegally seized … and searched his cell phone.” The brother of the student, also enrolled at the school, joined the lawsuit to allege that another administrator “illegally seized … and searched his cell phone.” There was police involvement. “Police officers were in the room while School District (officials) looked at (the student’s) phone.” Police did not “ever personally looked at (the student’s) phone.” The court ruled that School District (officials’) in-school interviews of (the students) and examinations of their cell phones were seizures and searches.” Even so, however, the court applied the case of New Jersey v. T.L.O., holding that the “in-school interviews and cell phones searches were justified at the inception. On the day in question, School District Defendants were reasonably investigating what they perceived to be a serious school shooting threat…With respect to the cell phone searches, specifically, School District Defendants had reasonable grounds to believe that the students’ cell phones would contain information about the AirDropped Image.” The court also ruled that, “the interviews of (the students) were reasonable in scope.” As to the depth of the search of the phones and the extended period of the confiscation, the court ruled that the school officials were “shielded by qualified immunity and therefore cannot be liable for the searches of the (students’) cell phones.” As to the role of the police, the court held that no rights were violated. “(The police) did not question (the students). Moreover, there is no evidence in the record that (the police) ever conducted a search of either (student’s) phone…At most, the record shows that (the police) were present for the in-school interviews and cell phone searches and may have incidentally seen content on the (students’) cell phones.” Singh v. Sachem Central School District
— In New York, the New York State Senate “has passed legislation…to improve the training school security guards receive to work in an educational environment. Senate Bill S194A “requires school-specific instruction as part of the annual training for guards employed or contracted by schools.”
— In Alabama, the Walker County Sheriff “was arrested and indicted by a grand jury for employing non-certified people as School Resource Officers and deputy sheriff.” The Sheriff “is charged with at six counts for assigning unqualified individuals to positions where they wore uniforms, carried weapons, carried badges and used fully-equipped patrol vehicles.”
— In Virginia, Fairfax County Public Schools officials are implementing a program for the use of weapons detectors in its schools. “Before students enter, they must remove from their backpacks any items that could set off a false alarm, such as laptops, three-ring binders, collapsible umbrellas, metal lunch boxes, metal pencil cases, and metal glasses cases. If an alarm sounds, the student must pass a secondary screening.”