Sheriff's Office To Pay $3 Million For Invasive Searches Of 850 High School Students
from the a-few-thousand-dollars-per-grope dept
It's been barely a month since news came to us of the Worth County (GA) Sheriff's Department's search of an entire school's worth of high school students. Over 800 students were searched without a warrant, subjected to invasive pat downs that included breasts and genitals by Sheriff Jeff Hobby and his deputies.
Sheriff Hobby thought there might be drugs in the school, but despite the search of hundreds of students and the use of drug dogs, no drugs were found. A class action lawsuit [PDF] alleging multiple rights violations brought by some of the students was filed in June. In October, Sheriff Hobby and two of his deputies were indicted for sexual battery and false imprisonment.
In a surprisingly quick turnaround, there's already talk of a settlement, as Susan Hogan reports for the Washington Post.
On Tuesday, a legal advocacy group, the Southern Center for Human Rights, said a proposed $3 million settlement had been reached in the lawsuit, pending a judge’s approval.
That number has nothing to do with the severity of the violations, but rather is the limit of the sheriff department's insurance policy. But it will be spread to cover a majority of the student body harmed by the actions of these law enforcement officers.
Each class member will receive a monetary award of between $1,000 and $6,000, with those students subjected to more invasive searches receiving higher amounts. Once any outstanding claims are resolved and attorney fees of 15% of the fund are paid, half of any remaining funds will be paid into a fund for the benefit of Worth County High School students.
This quick settlement can likely be chalked up to a handful of variables. One, Hobby and his deputies have been indicted, which gives more credence to the students' claims their rights were violated. Two, the entire 4-hour lockdown was captured on the school's surveillance cameras, all but eliminating narrative options for the law enforcement defendants. Three, Sheriff Hobby's own statements in defense of his and his deputies' actions make it very clear the sheriff supports the mass violation of rights through policies and actions.
The only reason Hobby didn't pursue another warrantless search of the entire school's student body wasn't because of concerns about students and their rights, but because people were angry.
When asked about that previous search that came up dry, Hobby said he didn't think that search was thorough, so he decided to do his own.
He said he believes there are drugs at the high school and the middle school, but also said that he will not do another search, due to response from community.
So, straight up, the sheriff believes he did nothing wrong. His deputies did nothing wrong. If anything's wrong here, it's the response from the community -- people who apparently don't understand civil rights are nothing more than obstacles that must be skirted or surmounted if we're ever going to win this war on drugs.
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Filed Under: 4th amendment, georgia, high school, jeff hobby, search
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Yet they managed to find none.
Perhaps allowing cops to have good faith exceptions when they believe something is the law, even when a reasonable person would say thats not right, causes a form of brain damage.
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Even if he had found drugs on one or two students, that doesn't justify his becoming the Henry Ford of sexual assault, groping 850 teens assembly-line style. None were suspects. None consented, as one does when they agree to be groped if they want to fly.
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The next sheriff will just ask for consent then. "Who here wants to consent to a body search in order to be allowed to go home?"
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If the students were held outside school hours on such a condition, that would be false imprisonment.
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The students should still hold out for more; bankrupt the Sheriff and deputies. This was not done under any color of law, the taxpayers should not be paying the bill.
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the taxpayers SHOULD be paying the bill, only the kids here are innocent. The voting fucks calling themselves the "adults" in that town should be fucked over hard for letting their sheriff do this.
If you want to keep going like this then you OWE the piper. It's coming out of your ass in either lost economy or liberty.
I am sick and tired of people like you always trying to escape the taxman because you fail to grasp your responsibility in regards to how society is working where government is concerned. The bill will always come due and you can just keep sitting back without a care in the world to all of the injustice occurring in it never lifting a single finger.
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I'm still having trouble with the "no drugs were found" part, though. Out of 850 students, I'd expect at least a dozen dealers and fifty or more people with a stash, judging by where I went to school. Unless their definition of "drugs" that particular day happened to be quite specific and they weren't counting the usual pot, Percocets, and Ritalin.
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Because we all know that neither police nor school authorities have any authority to detain people after school hours.
Oh, wait...
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There are a few circumstances in which police can detain people for a *reasonable* amount of time - breathalyser tests, for example - without arrest.
But a lot of what you see on TV when police 'hold' people without letting them leave or issue statements like "don't leave town" have no legal basis or authority behind them.
If police hold someone for an extended period of time without arrest outside a few very constrained circumstances, they are exposing themselves to charges of false imprisonment or similar.
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Just ask her mother for permission! - Yeah, that will be fine.
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Search the sheriff department employees
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Re: Search the sheriff department employees
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The obvious next step (for someone who has learned nothing)
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Re: The obvious next step (for someone who has learned nothing)
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Re: The obvious next step (for someone who has learned nothing)
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Re: Re: The obvious next step (for someone who has learned nothing)
Even if convicted, the sheriff would not be required to resign, though if he's convicted of a felony he'd be ineligible to possess a firearm, which might cramp his style as sheriff.
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Sucks
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Re: Sucks
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Firing them leaves open the door for their union to pitch a fit and get them re-hired, or for them to simply shift to another precinct and carry on, same as before.
No, you want to stop police from abusing their positions and authority you make fines like this personal. No more shifting it to the department/taxpayers, hit them in their wallets such that they are the ones paying for their actions. Do that and you can be sure that they'd learn real quick that actions have consequences, even if they do have a badge.
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That along with the money he is paying for defense will hurt. Along with the money for Junior's drug bust defense, he will be lucky to have anything left to live on.
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If not for that, any police department that declared no wrongdoing and no policy violations in a case that was later declared by a court to be a civil, statutory or constitutional rights violation would be vulnerable to having their assets seized.
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Re: Sucks
Sorry did I say let? They practically "invite" it every election cycle. Citizens just pull their undies down and present while slapping their little asses!
Lets vote in the "tough on crime" one... he sounds like he knows now to clean up these streets! How many times has this been heard?
The more you treat suspects like guilty criminals the more every innocent person gets screwed! The more the "police" will treat you like peasants to be "told" how to live.
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Huh?
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That zero out of 850 had anything at all is like a statistical anomaly. Perhaps they picked the wrong day of the week (monday instead of friday, as an example) as everyone had depleted their supplies.
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That zero out of 850 had anything at all is like a statistical anomaly.
Sure. Let's think about that for a second...850 kids were able to collectively outwit a sheriff's department.
If that is, in fact what happened, the sheriff's department is in serious need of an enema. Because they really suck at what they do.
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You Are Missing......
When he searched he had a list of 13 students that he suspected had drugs, but only 3 were in school that day.
Two previous searches by other departments came up empty, so how did he know that the lost of 13 was good?
His son was busted by the feds about 2 months ago for drug dealing.
I suspect he found out his son had drugs, forced to come up with the names of the people at school that had drugs, thus the list of 13. Trying to protect his son a bit, he gives the list to a different department to have them search, on a day his son is not in school.
So either his son warned the others and they kept everything away from the school, or they already figured out that schools can be searched and don't deal on or around school grounds. Or both.
So these other bad students got his little boy into drugs, and he is going to do something about it. Now the feds bust the son for DEALING not just possession. The feds start talking to the son at the nearest LEO office, the sheriff's office. Mom and Dad come in and bust up the interview. I'm sure the DEA agent was pissed about that one and now is having other agencies dig into the sheriff.
The other departments that he got to do the first searches are likely not happy that he didn't give them the whole story and made them look stupid.
A major cluster-f***
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Re: You Are Missing......
The governor of GA used a law to put the elected sheriff in a timeout
https://www.officer.com/command-hq/news/20982831/georgia-gov-nathan-deal-suspends-indicted-wo rth-county-sheriff-jeff-hobby
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School
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Re: School
I bet they thought, OK, here they come again with this list of bad students, and they will run a drug dog down the halls and by all the lockers just like the other two departments did.
The sheriff seems to think what he did was legal because the school admins were present at the time. He is confusing a search of a person with the search of school property, say a locker of a student they suspected or a dog hit on.
See my above about his son.
If he wanted to search the 13 students he suspected, get a search warrant. However he would have to cough up some info about why he suspected the kids and where he got the information. He was trying to keep his son out of it.
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However, if you ever feel the police are in the wrong, I don't suggest you walk up to them and tell them to stop. You will most likely find yourself "obstructing police".
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Man..
This bugged me more than almost anything (Except for the unapologetic Sheriff). I wish all of the parents had gone after the Sheriff. This shit is not ok. The top leadership of everyone involved willingly should be fucking fired and hopefully found guilty of civil rights violations.
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This is an example of what is known as "specialization". It is the basis of civilization, stretching all the way back to the first time some people were able to spare time to work on things other than the pursuit of food and shelter.
This happens to be one of the cases where the simple, naive way of implementing "some people specialize in X" leads to undesirable side effects, but the solution to that is to use a different implementation, not to go back to everyone doing X for themselves.
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Hmmm
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And the worst part? The parents are paying for their own kids to be molested. Less than 21K people in the county, 35% under 18. That's a lot money to pay for a crooked sheriff, on a per capita basis. Your kid gets $3,500, but your family has to pay $1000+? Not worth it.
If the company insuring the county was smart, they would sue the sheriff and his deputies, get them stripped of immunity, and take everything from them. THAT will force departments everywhere to straighten up; if that's the only way to be insurable.
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I doubt if most departments buy policies that allow them to be sued by the insurance company. Sure, not allowing that probably makes the policies more expensive, but it's only tax dollars.
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jUST HOW STUPID IS'' IS"??
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I still have a funny feeling that "YOU CANT BE THAT STUPID", is a fair judgement of what is happening AROUND this country..
Something is making OUR police force PARANOID and PRE-PREPARED for something to happen in the future..
From selling MILITARY Goods and Vehicles to the police Force at BELOW COST/FREE PRICES..to Willingly BEING STUPID, and Shooting people and Dogs for NO reasons..
How many cop cars needed to STOP a speeder?
A person reaching for Gun permit, gets SHOT??
How many bullets to STOP a person??
PURPOSELY instigating a situation THAT DIDNT NEED TO HAPPEN..
20+ year Veteran Police officer SHOULD KNOW THE LAWS..
YES, some of this has been going on FOREVER, and we are seeing MORE of it because EVERYONE has a cellphone..
A person that represents the LAW, and does something WITH the credibility of THAT position, OF HIS own justification SHOULD be Sued PERSONALLY.. NOT threw the State funded Insurance WHICH IS NEVER ENOUGH..esp after 2-3 incidents..the STATE PAYS IT..not the officers..
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Why don't you go sit in your corner and play with your blocks some more while the grownups talk.
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Invasiveness
So now the molested students get to explain in detail exactly how invasive the molestation was, to find out if they were or weren't molested enough. Great. I'm sure that won't be traumatic or anything.
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I'd want a shit load more than $1k. And I wouldn't settle until Hobby's head sat on a spike...
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Children are obligated to attend school so they don't have an option. Children do not leave their Constitutional rights at the school door.
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You deserve no rights for having said that and exactly why shit like this is happening, I would rather have this sheriff than a fellow citizen that explains away liberty like obedient & cowardly cattle. People like you helped make this sheriff and the injustice to these children a reality and you don't event know why you are guilty! You are blissfully ignorant of the wretch you are.
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One could argue that walking in New York city is voluntary. If you don't want to be stopped and frisked by police, then don't walk the streets of NYC!
If there is no constitutional "right" to travel by air without being groin-searched, then there is also similarly no right to travel by foot (or any other method). If authorities can ignore the Fourth Amendment anywhere, then they can ignore it everywhere.
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Allowing the sheriff to grope you is voluntary; there is no right to leave home. You may take alternate schooling at home.
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He knew drugs were in the school
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Also, if you want to go the settlement route, can you ask/demand other things besides money? For example, can you make it a condition of accepting the settlement that the person you're suing has to admit wrong-doing, or even resign? I know they're not obligated to agree to such terms, but is it allowed to ask for such things either in addition to or instead of money?
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One Possible Class-Action Glitch
Such excluded persons may either bring their own actions, or not do so. But in either case, if they have properly opted out of the class, they are not bound by its resolution.
Each separate action would likely be barred by whatever the sovereign immunity limit is in Georgia. Surely the (now suspended) sheriff and his catamites would be pleased to defend separate actions. It is possible that they might even be personally liable, depending on the facts and law in Georgia.
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