Debbie and I sat in my office this afternoon and I earnestly asked the question, “Who in their right mind would actually pay university tuition to do this job”? She replied she had wondered the same herself. In my tenure as a school administrator, I’ve had a mental hospital call to inform me that there had been a threat against my life by one of their teen patents, I’ve come in not only to find bullet holes in my office window, but once I even found a turtle under my desk. To this day, I am unsure who placed the turtle there, but I didn’t realize I could still move that fast… the school nurse knows who did it, but she “ain’t” talking. I’ve had to testify in court, search drug dealers, and yesterday I went toe-to toe with yet another gang-banger. Ordinarily, I just laugh at them and call them another of “Malibu’s Most Wanted.” I mean seriously how difficult is it to be a gangster in one of America’s safest cities? Heck, I think I will get my group of middle-aged gals and we can all start dressing alike (if we can agree upon the right color) and doodle tags on our desk calendars! Instead of being “jumped in” by the other members, we could feed each other home-baked cookies and pies until our high cholesterol is staring death in the face.
Anywho, yesterday my principal came to my office and requested my presence. Before he became my boss we enjoyed an occasional game of “good cop, bad cop” with the juvenile delinquents. Although he used to play college football, I always got to be the bad cop! I must humbly admit I play the role pretty well. Today the tables had turned and I needed to be “good cop.” Now I promise I made an earnest effort to play along.
The same young man that spun out of control during testing a couple weeks ago was now seated in his office. I immediately recognized Raul, because only twice in my career have I used the phrase, “Go ahead and hit me, it’s a felony.” (I know, not the smartest phrase that I’ve ever spoken)! This time he was dropping f-bombs to the school principal, refusing to pull down his socks and challenging his right to wear a cap with a local gang imprinted on it. (The local police department has deemed pulling socks up to the bottom of shorts “gang apparel” and we do not allow it on campus) After two attempts to get this young man to comply, he had accompanied him to the office.
Through the Blitzkrieg of f-bombs I attempted to calm the kid and tell him to be respectful to the Principal. It worked about two minutes when he jumped up and was going to leave the office. I stood up and blocked his exit and told him to sit down. I noticed his backpack and given his dress, I was going to see if he had tagged his notebooks. After a conversation with his probation officer a few weeks ago I knew this would be a violation of his probation and I should let her know. (By federal law, school administrators are given “en loco parentis” rights to search students in order to maintain the safety of campus.)
Sure enough I found pages tagged and began to pull them out. Once again Raul jumped up, snatched the papers out of my hand and started to leave out of the side door. I followed him, attempted to stop him by grabbing his shoulder and reaching around his neck to retrieve the papers. He immediately started yelling, “you can’t touch me, you grabbed my neck and I am going to sue you.” Now concerned for my safety, my principal jumped up and put himself between us and directed him to sit in chair positioned in the corner. As Raul was sitting down my principal yelled for office staff to call the police department as I made my way to his phone to call the Juvenile Youth Authority. He continued to berate me yelling, “You can’t touch me, you ain’t nothing”! I attempted to explain to this young man that if a student becomes out of control I do have the legal right to touch him. I was even gracious enough to offer to print the law for his attorney, he was so out of control he didn’t hear a word I said.
He then began to rip the tagged papers I recovered into shreds and proceeded to walk over to the trash can and throw them away. In hindsight, I should have thanked him for doing his part to save the planet, but I continued to hold for a probation officer. He then began to pace and continued to yell… “You think your tough, you ain’t nothing on the streets,” he followed this by saying “That is ok… I’ll see you on the streets” !
His probation officer was out of the office, but I was directed to the Officer of the Day for assistance. About the time I was connected our School Resource Officer arrived. As the principal explained the situation to the police officers I requested someone from probation come remove him due to his erratic behavior. The Probation Officer requested to speak to our Resource Officer while we continued to calm this young man.
During this conversation he shared that his friend had just been stabbed in a gang fight and later died. His brother was also killed… his father was a gangster, he had grown up on the streets and that is all he knew. Our SRO returned to handcuff Raul and informhim that he was being arrested fora felony threat to a school official. At that moment for some reason his sister arrived at school with her three-year-old son to leave a cell phone for him. The police explained to her that they were about to drive him to juvenile hall. They waited until she left so that his 3-year-old nephew would not have to see his uncle put in a police car in cuffs.
While the situation was being explained to his sister, Raul sat in the chair, handcuffed with tears rolling down his eyes. He leaned over to wipe is face on his pant legs… this was more than I could handle. I picked up a tissue and asked him if it was ok to wipe his eyes, he agreed and I wiped his tears.
He was then removed for campus. My principal then notified the district office of the ordeal and while he explained the story tears ran down my own face. After he hung up, he asked what was wrong, I remarked, “This is a vicious cycle… it is just a matter of time before that 3 year old is sitting in someone’s office going through the same motions.”
How do we break these kids out of this lifestyle? How can we possibly expect them to fit into society’s mold if they have been conditioned all their life to be a gangster? This kid had no clue how to behave properly within the school structure. If we do nothing it is a signal of approval… if we remove him, nothing gets solved. My boss looked at me and said "I will never ask you to play "good cop" again"!
