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  • Students with disabilities often snared by subjective discipline rules

    Students with disabilities often snared by subjective discipline rules

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    For the first 57 minutes of the basketball game between two Bend, Oregon, high school rivals, Kyra Rice stood at the edges of the court taking yearbook photos. With just minutes before the end of the game, she was told she had to move.

    Kyra pushed back: She had permission to stand near the court. The athletic director got involved, Kyra recalled. She let a swear word or two slip. 

    Kyra has anxiety as well as ADHD, which can make her impulsive. Following years of poor  experiences at school, she sometimes became defensive when she felt overwhelmed, said her mom, Jules Rice. 

    But at the game, Kyra said she kept her cool overall. Both she and her mother were shocked to learn the next day that she’d been suspended from school. 

    “OK, maybe she said some bad words, but it’s not enough to suspend her,” Rice said. 

    The incident’s discipline record, provided by Rice, lists a series of categories to explain the suspension: insubordination, disobedience, disrespectful/minor disruption, inappropriate language, non-compliance. 

    Broad and subjective categories like these are cited hundreds of thousands of times a year to justify removing students from school, a Hechinger Report investigation found. The data show that students with disabilities, like Kyra, are more likely than their peers to be punished for such violations. In fact, they’re often more likely to be suspended for these reasons than for other infractions.

    For example, between 2017-18 and 2021-22, Rhode Island students with disabilities were, on average, two and a half times more likely than their peers to be suspended for any reason, but nearly three times more likely to be suspended for insubordination and almost four times more likely to be suspended for disorderly conduct. Similar patterns played out in other states with available data including Massachusetts, Montana and Vermont. 

    Federal law should offer students protections from being suspended for behavior that results from their disability, even if they are being disruptive or insubordinate. But those protections have significant limitations. At the same time, these subjective categories are almost tailor-made to trap students with disabilities, who might have trouble expressing or regulating themselves appropriately.

    Districts have wide discretion in setting their own rules and many students with disabilities quickly earn reputations at school as troublemakers. “Unfortunately, who gets caught up in a lot of the vagueness in the codes of conduct are students with disabilities,” said attorney Robert Tudisco, an expert with Understood.org, a nonprofit that provides resources and support to people with learning and attention disabilities.

    Related: When your disability gets you sent home from school

    Students on the autism spectrum often have a hard time communicating with words and might yell or become aggressive if something upsets them. A student with oppositional defiant disorder is likely to be openly insubordinate to authority, while one with dyslexia might act out when frustrated with schoolwork. Students with ADHD typically have a hard time controlling their impulses.

    Kyra’s disability created challenges throughout her school career in the Bend-La Pine School District. “Nobody really understood her,” Rice said. “She’s a big personality and she’s very impulsive. And impulsivity is what gets kids in trouble and gets kids suspended.” 

    Suspended for…what?

    Students miss hundreds of thousands of school days each year for subjective infractions like defiance and disorderly conduct, a Hechinger investigation revealed. 

    Kyra, now 17, said that too few teachers cared about her individualized education program, or IEP, a document that details the accommodations a student in special education is granted. She’d regularly butt heads with teachers or skip class altogether to avoid them. Her favorite teacher was her special ed teacher. 

    “She understood my ADHD and my other special needs,” Kyra said. “My other teachers didn’t.”

    Scott Maben, district spokesperson, said in an email he could not comment on specific disciplinary matters because of privacy concerns, but that the district had a range of responses to deal with student misconduct and that administrators “carefully consider a response that is commensurate with the violation.” 

    In Oregon, “disruptive conduct” accounted for more than half of all suspensions from 2017-18 to 2021-22. The state department of education includes in that category insubordination and disorderly conduct, as well as harassment, obscene behavior, minor physical altercations, and “other” rule violations. 

    Disruptive behavior is the leading cause of suspensions because of its “inherently subjective nature,” the state department of education’s spokesperson, Marc Siegal, said in an email. He added that the department monitors discipline data for special education disparities and works with school districts on the issue. 

    The primary protections for students with disabilities come from the federal government, through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA. But that law only requires districts to examine whether a student’s behavior stems from their disability after they have missed 10 total days of school through suspension. 

    At that point, districts are required to hold a manifestation hearing, in which officials must determine whether a student’s behavior was the result of their disability. “That’s where it gets very gray,” Tudisco said. “What happens in the determination of manifestation is very subjective.”

    In his experience, he added, the behavior is almost always connected to a student’s disability, but school districts often don’t see it that way. 

    “Manifestation is not about giving Johnny or Susie a free pass because they have a disability,” Tudisco said. “It’s a process to understand why this behavior occurred so we can do something to prevent it tomorrow.” 

    Related: Senators call for stronger rules to reduce off-the-books suspensions

    The connections are often much clearer to parents. 

    A Rhode Island mother, Pearl, said her daughter was easily overwhelmed in her elementary school classroom in the Bristol Warren Regional School District. (Pearl is being referred to by her middle name because she is still a district parent and fears retaliation.) 

    Her child has autism and easily experiences a sensory overload. If the classroom was too loud or someone new walked in, she might start screaming and get out of her seat, Pearl said. Teachers struggled to calm her down, as other students were escorted out of the room. 

    Sometimes, Pearl was called to pick up her daughter early, in an unrecorded informal removal. A few times, though, she was suspended for disorderly conduct, Pearl recalled. 

    Between 2017-18 and 2020-21, students with disabilities in the Bristol Warren Regional School District made up about 13 percent of the student body, but accounted for 21 percent of suspensions for insubordination and 30 percent of all disorderly conduct suspensions. 

    The district did not respond to repeated requests for comment. 

    The Rhode Island Department of Education collects data on school discipline from districts, but special education and discipline reform advocates in the state say that the agency rarely acts on these numbers. 

    Department spokesperson Victor Morente said in an email that the agency monitors discipline data and is “very clear that suspension should be the last option considered.” He added that the department has published resources about alternatives to suspension and discipline specifically for students with disabilities. 

    A 2016 state law that limits the overall use of out-of-school suspensions also requires that districts examine their data for inequities. Districts that find such disparities are supposed to submit a report to the department of education, said Hannah Stern, a policy associate at the Rhode Island American Civil Liberties Union.

    Her group submits public records requests for copies of their reports every year, but has never received one, she said, “even though almost every single school district exhibits disparities.”

    Related: Sent home early: Lost learning in special education

    Pearl said that her daughter needed one-on-one support in the classroom instead of punishment. “She’s autistic. She’s not going to learn her lesson by suspending her,” Pearl said. “She actually got more scared to go back. She actually felt very unwelcome and very sad.”

    Students with autism often have a hard time connecting their actions to the punishment, said Joanne Quinn, executive director of The Autism Project, a Rhode Island-based group that offers support to family members of people with autism. With suspension, “there’s no learning going on and they’re going to do the same thing incorrectly.”

    Quinn’s group provides training for schools throughout Rhode Island and beyond, aimed at helping teachers understand how the brain functions in people with autism and offering strategies on how to effectively respond to behavior challenges that could easily be labeled disobedient or disorderly. 

    Federal law provides a road map for schools to improve how they respond to misconduct related to a student’s disability. Schools should identify a student’s triggers and create a behavior intervention plan aimed at preventing problems before they start, it says. 

    Related: How a disgraced method of diagnosing learning disabilities persists in our nation’s schools

    But, doing these things well requires time, resources and training that can be in short supply, leaving teachers feeling alone, struggling to maintain order in their classrooms, said Christine Levy, a former special education teacher and administrator who works as an advocate for individual special education students in the Northeast, including Rhode Island. 

    Levy recently worked with a student with disabilities who was suspended after he tickled a peer at a locker on five straight days. But, she said, the situation should have never reached the point of suspension: Educators should have quickly identified what the boy was struggling with and set a plan in motion to help him, including modeling appropriate locker conduct. 

    Had this boy’s teachers done that, the suspension could have been avoided. “The repair of that is so much longer and so much harder to do versus, let’s catch it right away,” she said.

    Cranston Public School officials would regularly call Michelle Gomes and tell her to come get her daughter for misbehaving in class, she said. Credit: Sarah Butrymowicz/The Hechinger Report

    Many parents described similar situations, though, in which a child routinely got in trouble for repeated behavior. When Michelle Gomes’s daughter became upset in her kindergarten classroom, she’d often run out and refuse to come back in. Sometimes, she’d tear things off the walls.

    “Whenever she gets like that, it’s hard to see,” Gomes said. “I hurt for her. It’s like she’s not in control.”

    Gomes received regular calls from Cranston Public School officials to come pick her daughter up. A couple of times, the child was formally suspended, Gomes said. The school described her as a safety risk, Gomes recalled.

    “She obviously doesn’t feel safe herself,” she said. 

    Cranston Public Schools did not respond to requests for comment. 

    Gomes’s daughter had a speech delay and anxiety and qualified for special education services. A private neurological evaluation concluded that she was compensating for that delay with her physical responses, Gomes said. 

    This can be a common cause of behavior challenges for students with disabilities, experts say.

    “Behavior is communication,” said Julian Saavandra, an assistant principal and an expert at Understood.org. “The behavior is trying to tell us something. We as the IEP team, the school team, have to dig deeper.” 

    On her own, Gomes found strategies that helped. Gomes’ child struggled with transitions, so they’d go over her day in advance to prepare her for what to expect. A play therapist taught both her and her daughter breathing exercises. 

    Her daughter was switched to another district school where a social worker would sometimes walk the girl to class. When the child got worked up, she’d sometimes be allowed to sit with that social worker or in the nurse’s office to calm down. That helped, but sometimes, those staff members weren’t available. 

    In the end, Gomes moved her daughter to a school outside the district that was better equipped to help the girl deescalate. Her behavior problems lessened and she started enjoying going to school, Gomes said.

    But Gomes still can’t understand why more teachers weren’t able to help her child regulate herself. “Do we need retraining or do we need new training?” she said. “Because this is mindblowing to me, not one of you can do that.”

    Note: The Hechinger Report’s Fazil Khan had nearly completed the data analysis and reporting for this project when he died in a fire in his apartment building. USA TODAY Senior Data Editor Doug Caruso completed data visualizations for this project based on Khan’s work.

    This story about suspension of students with disabilities was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

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    Sarah Butrymowicz, Fazil Khan and Sara Hutchinson

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  • Young children misbehave. Some are suspended for acting their age

    Young children misbehave. Some are suspended for acting their age

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    JOHNSBURG, Ill. — A group of fifth grade boys trailed into the conference room in the front office of Johnsburg Elementary School and sat at the table, their feet dangling from the chairs.

    “It was brought to my attention yesterday that there was an incident at football,” Principal Bridget Belcastro said to the group.

    The students tried to explain: One boy pushed a kid, another jumped on the ball, and yet another jumped on the boy on the ball. It depended on who you asked.

    “I tripped — if I did jump on him, I didn’t mean to,” one student said. “Then I got up and turned around and these two were going at each other.”

    Belcastro, listening closely, had the unenviable job of making sense of the accounts and deciding on consequences.

    In elementary schools across the country, an incident as common as a playground fracas over a football could result in kids being suspended.

    A Hechinger analysis of school discipline data from 20 states found widespread use of suspensions for students of all ages for ill-defined, subjective categories of misbehavior, such as disorderly conduct, defiance and insubordination. From 2017 to 2022, state reports cited these categories as a reason for suspension or expulsion more than 2.8 million times.

    Signage throughout Johnsburg Elementary School in Illinois encourages students to regulate their emotions. The school primarily uses social emotional learning interventions instead of exclusionary discipline. Credit: Ariel Gilreath/The Hechinger Report

    In many cases, young students were removed from their classes for behavior that is common for kids their age, according to additional discipline records from half a dozen school districts obtained through public records requests.

    In Montana, students in K-5 made up almost 4,000 suspensions for disorderly conduct. In New Mexico, it was nearly 2,700.

    Elementary school students are often punished for conduct that experts say is developmentally typical of children who are still learning how to behave and appropriately express themselves in school. Even severe behaviors, like kicking or punching peers and teachers, can be a function of young children still figuring out how to regulate their emotions.

    In many other cases, the behavior does not appear serious. In Washington, a kindergarten student was suspended from school for two days for pulling his pants down at recess. A second grader in Rhode Island was suspended when he got mad and ran out of the school building. In Maryland, a third grader was suspended because she yelled when she wasn’t allowed to have cookies, disrupting class.

    At Johnsburg Elementary School, which serves about 350 third through fifth grade students on the northern outskirts of Chicago’s suburbs, administrators are trying to limit the use of suspensions. Student conferences, like the one after the fight during football, are just one piece of a much larger effort aimed at preventing and addressing misbehavior. In the end, the boys didn’t lose time in the classroom, but they were no longer allowed to play football at recess.

    Belcastro’s decision not to suspend the boys was based on research that consistently shows suspending students makes it more difficult for them to succeed academically and more likely they will enter the criminal justice system as adults.

    Suspension can be particularly damaging when doled out to younger students, said Iheoma Iruka, a professor of public policy at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Being kicked out of the classroom can fracture kids’ trust in their teachers and the institution early on. Those early impressions can stay with students and cause long-lasting harm, Iruka said, particularly to students for whom school is the most consistent part of their lives.

    “Over time, it erodes children’s sense of safety. It erodes their relationship with teachers,” said Iruka, who is also the founding director of the Equity Research Action Coalition at UNC, a group that researches and develops policies to address bias in the classroom.

    Classroom posters and signs emphasize how students should behave at Johnsburg Elementary School in Illinois. Credit: Ariel Gilreath/The Hechinger Report

    In part because of concerns like these, advocates and policymakers across the country often focus on the early grades when pushing for discipline reform. At least 17 states and D.C. have passed laws to limit the use of suspension and expulsion for younger children, typically students in pre-K through third or fifth grade. In Illinois, where Johnsburg Elementary School is located, schools are allowed to suspend young students, but legislators passed a law in 2015 that encourages using suspension as a last resort.

    Child development experts say that, ideally, suspensions should be used only in extremely rare circumstances, especially in elementary school.

    Suspended for…what?

    Students miss hundreds of thousands of school days each year for subjective infractions like defiance and disorderly conduct, a Hechinger investigation revealed. 

    Misbehavior at any age is often a symptom of deeper issues, experts say, but young children, especially, struggle to identify those issues and communicate them effectively. Students in the early grades are also still trying to figure out how to function in a school environment.

    “We can hold older students accountable to know the rules of behavior in their schools,” said Maurice Elias, a professor of psychology who researches social emotional learning at Rutgers University. “We certainly can’t expect younger children to know all of those things and to anticipate the consequences of all their actions.”

    And young students need to be specifically taught how to manage their emotions, added Sara Rimm-Kaufman, a professor of education at the University of Virginia.

    “Helping kids understand what’s OK at home might not be OK at school, or making kids feel appreciated, respected, understood — that’s a really important issue and it keeps kids engaged,” she said.

    Teachers at Johnsburg Elementary are trying to do just that.

    The school adopted a new program this year called Character Strong, which is aimed at helping students with coping, emotional regulation, self-management and relationships. A few weeks into the school year, teachers filled out a screener to identify students struggling in those areas.

    A booklet is flipped to a cartoon creature depicting “frustration,” the emotion of the day in school social worker Dawn Mendralla’s office at Johnsburg Elementary School in Illinois. Credit: Ariel Gilreath/The Hechinger Report

    On a Thursday morning in November, four third graders left class to meet with social worker Dawn Mendralla. Twinkling lights lined the ceiling of her office; a small flip book depicting various emotions was opened to a page with a purple creature gritting its teeth and holding up its fists in frustration. A poster on the cabinet said: All feelings are welcome here.

    “Regulation means we’re controlling ourselves, we’re controlling our behaviors, we’re controlling our emotions,” Mendralla said to the students. “Do we have trouble sometimes controlling our behaviors in class? Sometimes we have the urge to talk to our neighbor, or we have the urge to look out the window, or to not pay attention or to fidget with something?”

    Once a week, the identified students attend a group session with Mendralla focused on improving those skills. Children who need more help also briefly check in with Mendralla, individually, every day. Students who misbehave, like the group of boys who got into a fight at recess, are also sent to Belcastro’s office.

    Like other schools throughout the country, Johnsburg Elementary has been dealing with the ongoing impact of the pandemic on children’s behavior.

    “There’s an increase in emotional outbursts, frustration, and they don’t know how to manage their emotions effectively,” Belcastro said. “Secondly, would be social interaction changes, because they weren’t around other kids and other people for so long, they didn’t have that and now they’ve forgotten how or never learned how to make friends.”

    During the 2022-23 school year, Johnsburg Elementary had 687 referrals, or disciplinary write-ups, involving a student misbehaving, up from 222 referrals in 2021-22 and 276 referrals in 2018-19.

    Even with the rise in behavior challenges, the school has tried to limit student suspensions; Through February of this school year, only three students had been given an in-school suspension and one had been sent home.

    Elsewhere, though, the post-pandemic rise in misbehavior has caused some states to backtrack on policies limiting exclusionary discipline and instead made it easier for schools to kick students out of class.

    In Nevada last year, legislators lowered the age at which students can be suspended or expelled from 11 to 6 and made it easier for schools to suspend or expel students.

    In 2023, Kentucky lawmakers gave principals the ability to permanently kick students out of school if they believe the student will “chronically disrupt the education process for other students” and if they have been removed from class three times for being disruptive.

    “There’s just been more and more discipline problems across the nation, and definitely across the state. We’ve just gotta get things under control,” said Rep. Steve Rawlings, who was among the legislation’s sponsors. “We have to prioritize the safety of teachers in the classroom and fellow students so that the focus can be on academics and not be distracted by issues of discipline.”

    Elias and other experts say suspension should act more as a rare safety measure in extreme cases, rather than a disciplinary measure.

    A fourth grade student cuts out a paper turkey he colored in class at Johnsburg Elementary School in Illinois. Students at the school are almost never sent home from school for misbehavior. Credit: Ariel Gilreath/The Hechinger Report

    In the discipline records The Hechinger Report obtained, some school districts reported suspending young children under disruptive conduct for punching peers or throwing items at teachers.

    In such cases, suspension may make sense, experts say, while allowing educators time to develop a longer-term response to the misconduct. But schools should not expect that removing kids from class will magically improve their behavior. 

    “When a child comes back into a classroom after a situation like this, it’s often that there’s just going to be a continuation of what was happening before, unless the child is brought back into the community in a way that changes the direction and nature of the relationships between the child and the people around them,” Rimm-Kaufman said

    That’s something Belcastro has argued as well. Occasionally, there are tensions with parents who want to see other students punished when their own child has been harmed in some way. Belcastro doesn’t’t think that’s an effective approach.

    “Punishments do not change behavior. No kid at this age level considers what the potential consequences might be before they do an action,” Belcastro recalled telling one parent who was upset about a student at the school. “So it really serves no purpose, it’s not helpful. But instead, working to prevent the behavior is what we need to do, so it doesn’t’t happen again.”

    In Mendralla’s room, a small group of fourth grade boys showed up for a group session one day in November. The goal of this weekly session is for students to learn how to better regulate their emotions.

    “What happens when we keep things all to ourselves, things build up, and we keep things bottled up inside us?” Mendralla asked.

    “Then you explode,” a student said. “With emotions.”

    Mendralla asked the students to think of rules they would like to have for these group sessions. A couple of students threw out suggestions: no running around the room, no interrupting, no blaming others, nobody is better than anybody else.

    Another fourth grader raised his hand.

    “If there’s another person making fun of another person because of the way they look and act, don’t join in,” he said. “We don’t know what they’re going through.”

    This story about misbehavior in young children was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

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    Ariel Gilreath

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  • Vague school rules at the root of millions of student suspensions

    Vague school rules at the root of millions of student suspensions

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    A Rhode Island student smashed a ketchup packet with his fist, splattering an administrator. Another ripped up his school work. The district called it “destruction of school property.” A Washington student turned cartwheels while a PE teacher attempted to give instructions. 

    A pair of Colorado students slid down a dirt path despite a warning. An Ohio 12th grader refused to work while assigned to the in-school suspension room. Then there was the Maryland sixth grader who swore when his computer shut off and responded “my bad” when his teacher addressed his language. 

    Their transgressions all ended the same way: The students were suspended.

    Discipline records state the justification for their removals: These students were disorderly. Insubordinate. Disruptive. Disobedient. Defiant. Disrespectful. 

    At most U.S. public schools, students can be suspended, even expelled, for these ambiguous and highly subjective reasons. This type of punishment is pervasive nationwide, leading to hundreds of thousands of missed days of school every year, and is often doled out for misbehavior that doesn’t seriously hurt anyone or threaten school safety, a Hechinger Report investigation found. 

    Districts cited one of these vague violations as a reason for suspending or expelling students more than 2.8 million times from 2017-18 to 2021-22 across the 20 states that collect this data. That amounted to nearly a third of all punishments recorded by those states. Black students and students with disabilities were more likely than their peers to be disciplined for these reasons. 

    Many discipline reform advocates say that suspensions should be reserved for only the most serious, dangerous behaviors. Those, the analysis found, were much less common. Violations of rules involving alcohol, tobacco or drugs were cited as reasons for ejecting students from classes about 759,000 times, and incidents involving a weapon were cited 131,000 times. Even infractions involving physical violence — such as fighting, assault and battery — were less common, with about 2.3 million instances. (Learn more about the data and how we did our analysis.)

    Because categories like defiance and disorderly conduct are often defined broadly at the state level, teachers and administrators have wide latitude in interpreting them, according to interviews with dozens of researchers, educators, lawyers and discipline reform advocates. That opens the door to suspensions for low-level infractions.  

    “Those are citations you can drive a truck through,” said Jennifer Wood, executive director for the Rhode Island Center for Justice. 

    The Hechinger Report also obtained more than 7,000 discipline records from a dozen school districts across eight states through public records requests. They show a wide range of behavior that led to suspensions for things like disruptive conduct and insubordination. Much of the conduct posed little threat to safety. For instance, students were regularly suspended for being tardy, using a phone during class or swearing. 

    Decades of research have found that students who are suspended from school tend to perform worse academically and drop out at higher rates. Researchers have linked suspensions to lower college enrollment rates and increased involvement with the criminal justice system.

    These findings have spurred some policymakers to try to curtail suspensions by limiting their use to severe misbehavior that could harm others. Last year, California banned all suspensions for willful defiance. Other places, including Philadelphia and New York City, have similarly eliminated suspensions for low-level misconduct. 

    Elsewhere, though, as student behavior has worsened following the pandemic, legislators are calling for stricter discipline policies, concerned for educators who struggle to maintain order and students whose lessons are disrupted. These legislative proposals come despite warnings from experts and even classroom teachers who say more suspensions — particularly for minor, subjective offenses — are not the answer. 

    Roberto J. Rodríguez, assistant U.S. education secretary, said he was concerned by The Hechinger Report’s findings. “We need more tools in the toolkit for our educators and for our principals to be able to respond to some of the social and emotional needs,” he said. “Suspension and expulsion shouldn’t be the only tool that we pull out when we see behavioral issues.”

    Suspended for…what?

    Students miss hundreds of thousands of school days each year for subjective infractions like defiance and disorderly conduct, a Hechinger investigation revealed. 

    Read the series

    In Rhode Island, insubordination was the most common reason for a student to be suspended in the years analyzed. Disorderly conduct was third. 

    In the Cranston Public Schools, these two categories accounted for half of the Rhode Island district’s suspensions in 2021-22. Disorderly conduct alone made up about 38 percent. 

    Behavior that led to a such a suspension there in recent years included:

    • Getting a haircut in the bathroom;
    • Putting a finger through the middle of another student’s hamburger at lunch;
    • Writing swear words in an email exchange with another student;
    • Throwing cut up pieces of paper in the air;
    • Stabbing a juice bottle with a pencil and getting juice all over a table and peers; and
    • Leapfrogging over a peer and “almost” knocking down others.

    Cranston school officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

    Rhode Island Department of Education spokesperson Victor Morente said in an email that the agency could not comment on specific causes for suspension, but that the department “continues to underscore that all options need to be exhausted before schools move to suspension.” 

    The department defines disorderly conduct as “Any act which substantially disrupts the orderly conduct of a school function, [or] behavior which substantially disrupts the orderly learning environment or poses a threat to the health, safety, and/or welfare of students, staff, or others.”

    Related: In New York state, students can be suspended for up to an entire school year

    Many states use similarly unspecific language in their discipline codes, if they provide any guidance at all, a review of state policies found. 

    For education departments that do provide definitions to districts, subjectivity is frequently built in. In Louisiana’s state guidance, for instance, “treats authority with disrespect” includes “any act which demonstrates a disregard or interference with authority.”

    Ted Beasley, spokesperson for the Louisiana Department of Education, said in an email that discipline codes are not defined in state statutes and that “school discipline is a local school system issue.” 

    Officials in several other states said the same.

    The result, as demonstrated by a review of discipline records from eight states, is a broad interpretation of the categories: Students were suspended for shoving, yelling at peers, throwing objects, and violating dress codes. Some students were suspended for a single infraction; others broke several rules. 

    In fewer than 15 percent of cases, students got in trouble for using profanity, according to a Hechinger analysis of the records. The rate was similar for when they yelled at or talked back to administrators. In at least 20 percent of cases, students refused a direct order and in 6 percent, they were punished for misusing technology, including being on the cell phones during class or using school computers inappropriately. 

    “What is defiance to one is not defiance to all, and that becomes confusing, not just for the students, but also the adults,” said Harry Lawson, human and civil rights director for the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers union. “Those terms that are littered throughout a lot of codes of conduct, depending on the relationship between people, can mean very different things.”

    But giving teachers discretion in how to assign discipline isn’t necessarily a problem, said Adam Tyner, national research director at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. “The whole point of trusting, in this case, teachers, or anyone, to do their job is to be able to let them have responsibility and make some judgment calls,” he said.

    Tyner added that it’s important to think about all students when considering school discipline policies. “If a student is disrupting the class, it may not help them all that much to take them and put them in a different environment, but it sure might help the other students who are trying to learn,” he said. 

    Johanna Lacoe spent years trying to measure exactly that — the effect of discipline reforms on all students In Philadelphia, including those who hadn’t been previously suspended. The district banned out-of-school suspensions for many nonviolent offenses in 2012. 

    Critics of the policy shift warned that it would harm students who do behave in class; they’d learn less or even come to school less often. Lacoe’s research found that schools faithfully following the new rules saw no decrease in academic achievement or attendance for non-suspended students. 

    But, the policy wasn’t implemented consistently, the researchers found. The schools that complied already issued the fewest suspensions; it was easier for them to make the policy shift, Lacoe said. In schools that kept suspending students, despite the ban, test scores and student attendance fell slightly.

    Overall, though, students who had been previously suspended showed improvements. Lacoe called eliminating out-of-school suspensions for minor infractions a “no brainer.”

    “We know suspensions aren’t good for kids,” said Lacoe, the director of the California Policy Lab, a group that partners with government agencies to research the impact of policies. “Kicking kids out of school and providing them no services and no support and then returning them to the environment where nothing has changed is not a good solution.” 

    Related: Hidden expulsions? Schools kick students out but call it a ‘transfer’

    This fall, two high schoolers in Providence, Rhode Island, walked out of a classroom. They later learned they were being suspended for their action, because it was disrespectful to a teacher.

    On her first day back after the suspension, one of the students, Sara, said she went to her teacher to talk through the incident. It was something she wished she’d had the chance to do without missing a couple days of school.

    “Suspending someone, not talking to someone, that’s not helping,” said Sara, whose last name is being withheld to protect her privacy. “You’re not helping them to succeed. You’re making it worse.”

    In 2021-22, disorderly conduct and insubordination made up a third of all Providence Public School suspensions. 

    District spokesperson Jay Wegimont said in an email that the district uses many alternatives to suspension and out-of-school suspensions are only given to respond to “persistent conduct which substantially impedes the ability of other students to learn.”

    Some parents and students interviewed asked not to have their full names published, fearing retaliation from their school districts. But nearly all parents and students who have dealt with suspension for violations such as disrespect and disorderly conduct also said that the punishment often did nothing but leave the student frustrated with the school and damage the student’s relationships with teachers. 

    Following a suspension, Yousef Munir founded the Young Activists Coalition, which advocated for fair discipline and restorative practices at Cincinnati Public Schools. Credit: Albert Cesare/ Cincinnati Enquirer

    At a Cincinnati high school in 2019, Yousuf Munir led a peaceful protest about the impact of climate change, with about 50 fellow students. Munir, then a junior, planned to leave school and join a larger protest at City Hall. The principal said Munir couldn’t go and threatened to assign detention.

    Munir left anyway.

    That detention morphed into suspension for disobeying the principal, said Munir, who remembers thinking: “The only thing you’re doing is literally keeping me out of class.”

    The district told The Hechinger Report that Munir was suspended for leaving campus without written permission, a decision in line with the district’s code of conduct. 

    The whole incident left Munir feeling “so angry I didn’t know what to do with it.” They went on to start the Young Activists Coalition, which advocated for fair discipline and restorative practices at Cincinnati Public Schools.

    Now in college, Munir is a mentor to high school kids. “I can’t imagine ever treating a kid that way,” they said. 

    In 2021-22, 38 percent of suspensions and expulsions in Maryland’s Dorchester County Public Schools were assigned for disrespect and disruption. Credit: Sarah Butrymowicz/The Hechinger Report

    Parents and students around the country described underlying reasons for behavior problems that a suspension would do little to address: Struggles with anxiety. Frustration with not understanding classwork. Distraction by events in their personal lives. 

    Discipline records are also dotted with examples that indicate a deeper cause for the misbehavior.

    In one case, a student in Rhode Island was suspended for talking back to her teachers; the discipline record notes that her mother had recently died and the student might need counseling. A student in Minnesota “lost his cool” after having “his buttons pushed by a couple peers.” He cursed and argued back. A Maryland student who went to the main office to report being harassed cursed at administrators when asked to formally document it. 

    To be sure, discipline records disclose only part of a school’s response, and many places may simultaneously be working to address root causes. Even as they retain — and exercise — the right to suspend, many districts across the country have adopted alternative strategies aimed at building relationships and repairing harm caused by misconduct. 

    “There needs to be some kind of consequence for acting out, but 9 out of 10 times, it doesn’t need to be suspension,” said Judy Brown, a social worker in Minneapolis Public Schools.

    Related: Preventing suspensions: Tackle discipline problems with empathy first

    Some educators who have embraced alternatives say in the long run they’re more effective. Suspension temporarily removes kids; it rarely changes behavior when they return. 

    “It’s really about having the compassion and the time and patience to be able to have these conversations with students to see what the antecedent of the behavior is,” Brown said. “It’s often not personal; they’re overwhelmed.” 

    In some cases, students act out because they don’t want to be at school at all and know the quickest escape is misbehavior. 

    Records from Maryland’s Dorchester County Public Schools show that the main goal for some students who were suspended for defiance and disruption was getting sent home Credit: Sarah Butrymowicz/The Hechinger Report

    On Valentine’s day 2022, a Maryland seventh grader showed up to school late. She then refused to go to class or leave the hallway and, according to her Dorchester County discipline record, was disrespectful towards an educator. “These are the behaviors [the student] typically displays when she does not want to go to class,” her record reads. 

    By 8:30 she was suspended and sent home for three days.

    Dorchester County school officials declined to comment. In 2021-22, 38 percent of suspensions and expulsions in the district were assigned for disrespect and disruption.

    Last year, administrators in Minnesota’s Monticello School District spent the summer overhauling their discipline procedures and consequences, out of concern that students of color were being disproportionately disciplined. They developed clearer definitions for violation categories and instituted non-exclusionary tools to deal with isolated minor misbehaviors.

    Previously, the district suspended students for telling an “inappropriate joke” in class or cursing, records show. Those types of behavior will now be dealt with in schools, Superintendent Eric Olsen said, but repeated refusals and noncompliance could still lead to a suspension.

    “Would I ever want to see a school where we can’t suspend? I would not,” he said. “Life is always about balance.”

    Olsen wants his students — all students — to feel valued and be successful. But they’re not his only consideration. “You also have to think of your employees,” he said. “There’s also that fine line of making sure your staff feels safe.” 

    Related: Some kids have returned to in-person learning only to be kicked right back out

    Monticello, like most school districts across the country, has seen an increase in student misconduct since schools reopened after pandemic closures. A 2023 survey found that more than 40 percent of educators felt less safe in their schools compared with 2019 and, in some instances, teachers have been injured in violent incidents, including shootings. 

    And even before 2020, educators nationwide were warning that they lacked the appropriate mental health and social service supports to adequately deal with behavior challenges. Some nonviolent problems, like refusal to put phones away or stay in one’s seat, can make it difficult for teachers to effectively do their jobs. 

    And the discipline records reviewed by The Hechinger Report do capture a sampling of more severe misbehavior. In some cases, students were labeled defiant or disorderly for fighting, throwing chairs or even hitting a teacher. 

    Shatara Clark taught for 10 years in Alabama before feeling too disrespected and overextended to keep going. She recalled regular disobedience from students. 

    “Sometimes I look back like, ‘How did I make it?’” Clark said. “My blood pressure got high and everything.” 

    She became so familiar with the protocol for discipline referrals that she can still remember every step two years after leaving the classroom. In her schools, students were suspended for major incidents like fighting or threatening a teacher but also for repeated nonviolent behavior like interrupting or speaking out in class. 

    Clark said discipline records often don’t show the full context. “Say for instance, a boy got suspended for talking out of turn. Well, you’re not going to know that he’s done that five times, and I’ve called his parents,” she said. “Then you see someone that’s been suspended for fighting, and it looks like the same punishment for a lesser thing.”

    In many states, reform advocates and student activists pushing to ban harsh discipline policies have found a receptive audience in lawmakers. Many teachers are also sympathetic to their arguments; the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers support discipline reform and alternatives to suspension. 

    In some instances, though, teachers have resisted efforts to curtail suspensions, saying they need to have the option to remove kids from school.

    Many experts say the largest hurdle to getting teachers to embrace discipline reforms is that new policies are often rolled out without training or adequate staffing and support. 

    Without those things, “the policy change is somewhat of a paper tiger,” said Richard Welsh, an associate professor of education and public policy at Vanderbilt University. “If we don’t think about the accompanying support, it’s almost as if some of these are unfunded mandates.”  

    In Monticello, Olsen has focused on professional development for teachers to promote alternatives to suspension. The district has created space for students to talk about their actions and how they can rebuild relationships. 

    It’s still a work in progress. Teacher training, Olsen says, is key. 

    “You can’t just do a policy change and expect everyone to magically do it.”

    Reporting contributed by Hadley Hitson of the Montgomery Advertiser and Madeline Mitchell of the Cincinnati Enquirer, members of the USA TODAY Network; and Amanda Chen, Tazbia Fatima, Sara Hutchinson, Tara García Mathewson, and Nirvi Shah, The Hechinger Report. 

    Editors’ note: The Hechinger Report’s Fazil Khan had nearly completed the data analysis and reporting for this project when he died in a fire in his apartment building. Read about the internship fund created to honor his legacy as a data reporter. USA TODAY Senior Data Editor Doug Caruso completed data visualizations for this project based on Khan’s work.

    This story about classroom discipline was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

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    Sarah Butrymowicz, Fazil Khan and Meredith Kolodner

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  • Teenager charged for January SEPTA shooting released amid video evidence

    Teenager charged for January SEPTA shooting released amid video evidence

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    A 16-year-old has been cleared of all charges related to a fatal shooting at 15th Street Station after an investigation showed that he was not involved.

    The shooting took place on Jan. 11 on the station’s Market-Frankford Line westbound platform. Tyshaun Welles, 16, was struck in the head by a stray bullet after a shooter opened fire at a crowd. Welles died of his injuries on Jan. 16. 

    Zaire Wilson, 16, and Quadir Humphrey, 18, were arrested separately at the scene for the shooting. Police at the time said that Wilson had pulled out a gun before Humphrey began firing.

    Wilson, however, maintained his innocence. Surveillance footage showed that Wilson was “clearly not involved” in the shooting and that Humphrey had acted alone, said Jane Roh from the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office in an email.

    According to Roh, the footage was not immediately available to the district attorney’s office after Wilson’s arrest.

    As a result, the office requested a hearing on the matter. On Feb. 29, the district attorney’s office dropped all charges against Wilson and Judge Joffie Pittman ordered his release. Wilson was reunited with his family soon after.

    “When presented with evolving or new information, the criminal legal system should move as quickly in the interest of justice,” said District Attorney Larry Krasner in the email. “…whether that means being prepared to meet the Commonwealth’s burden at trial or releasing from detention people who did not actually participate in a crime.”

    Meanwhile, the district attorney’s office is still prosecuting Humphrey for murder and other related charges. 

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    Chris Compendio

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  • One teen killed, another injured in Germantown shooting, police say

    One teen killed, another injured in Germantown shooting, police say

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    Police are investigating a shooting killed one teenager and injured another in Germantown on Wednesday night. 

    Police responded to reports of gunshots at Germantown Avenue and Wister Street at 6:37 p.m., investigators said. Semaj Fields, 16, was shot in the upper back was taken to Jefferson Einstein Philadelphia Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 6:47 p.m. A 17-year-old who was shot in the right hip was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, police said. 

    A stray bullet struck nearly struck a 55-year-old man who was driving by at the time of the shooting, police said. The bullet struck his driver’s side window and passed through his sleeve, but did not strike the man. He is cooperating with the investigation, police said. 

    Police are looking for three suspects, including two shooters. Surveillance footage shows that the suspects are young and fled on foot, heading east on Wister Street, investigators said. They were wearing dark clothing at the time. No arrests have been made. 

    Investigators said they found seven spent shell casings from two semi-automatic weapons. The motive for the shooting remains under investigation.

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    Chris Compendio

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  • Hillsborough Stadium Disaster Fast Facts | CNN

    Hillsborough Stadium Disaster Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here is a look at the Hillsborough Disaster, a 1989 tragedy at a British soccer stadium. Overcrowding in the stands led to the deaths of 97 fans in a crush. Another 162 were hospitalized with injuries. It was the worst sports disaster in British history, according to the BBC.

    On April 15, 1989, more than 50,000 people gathered at the Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England, for the FA Cup Semi-Final football (soccer) match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. In order to relieve a bottleneck of Liverpool fans trying to enter the venue before kickoff, police opened an exit gate and people rushed to get inside. More than 3,000 fans were funneled into a standing-room-only area with a safe capacity of just 1,600. The obvious crush in the stands prompted organizers to stop the game after six minutes.

    Police initially concluded the crush was an attempt by rowdy fans to surge onto the field, according to the Taylor Interim Report, a 1989 government investigation led by Justice Peter Taylor. As officers approached the stands, it became apparent people were suffocating and trying to escape by climbing the fence.

    The Taylor Interim Report describes the scene: “The dead, the dying and the desperate became interwoven in the sump at the front of the pens, especially by the gates. Those with strength left clambered over others submerged in the human heap and tried to climb out over the fence…The victims were blue…incontinent; their mouths open, vomiting; their eyes staring. A pile of dead bodies lay and grew outside gate 3.”

    The emergency response was slow, according to the Hillsborough Independent Panel, a 2012 follow-up investigation. The problems were rooted in poor communication between police and ambulance dispatchers, according to the panel.

    Fans tried to help each other by tearing up pieces of advertising hoardings, creating improvised stretchers and carrying injured spectators away from the throngs, according to the Taylor Interim Report. People who had no first aid training attempted to revive the fallen. From the report: “Mouth to mouth respiration and cardiac massage were applied by the skilled and the unskilled but usually in vain. Those capable of survival mostly came round of their own accord. The rest were mostly doomed before they could be brought out and treated.” It took nearly 30 minutes for organizers to call for doctors and nurses via the public address system.

    South Yorkshire Police Supervisor David Duckenfield was in charge of public safety at the event. He was promoted to match commander weeks before the game and was unfamiliar with the venue, according to his testimony at a hearing in 2015. He acknowledged that he did not initiate the police department’s major incident plan for mass casualty disasters, even as the situation spiraled out of control. Duckenfield had originally blamed Liverpool fans for forcing the exit gate open, a crucial detail that he later admitted was a lie. He retired in 1990, conceding he was probably “not the best man for the job on the day.”

    August 1989 – The Taylor Interim Report is released, offering a detailed overview of how the tragedy unfolded. The report is named for Justice Peter Taylor, who is leading the investigation.

    January 1990 – The Taylor Final Report is published, proposing a number of reforms for soccer venues. Among the recommendations: football stadiums should replace standing room terraces with seated areas to prevent overcrowding.

    August 1990 – Although the Taylor Interim Report faulted police for poor planning and an inadequate response, the Director of Public Prosecutions announces that no officers will face criminal charges.

    1991 – The deaths of the fans are ruled accidental by a jury during an inquest. The members of the jury could have returned a verdict of unlawful killing, faulting the police for acting recklessly and compromising the safety of fans. Their other option was an open verdict, an inconclusive ruling.

    August 1998 – A group of victims’ families files civil manslaughter charges against South Yorkshire Police supervisors Duckenfield and Bernard Murray.

    2000 – The case goes to trial. The jury deadlocks on Duckenfield and finds Murray not guilty of manslaughter. Murray dies of cancer in 2006.

    April 2009 – As England observes the 20th anniversary of the tragedy, a new investigation is launched by a group called the Hillsborough Independent Panel.

    September 2012 – The panel releases its findings, detailing the numerous failings of authorities on the day of the tragedy and a subsequent cover up that shifted the blame from police to fans. The panel also proclaims that 41 of 96 victims could have been saved if police responded to the crisis more rapidly. The findings prompt Prime Minister David Cameron to issue an apology to the victims’ families.

    December 2012 – The High Court quashes the accidental death ruling for the victims, setting the stage for a new investigation and possible criminal charges.

    March 31, 2014 – A new round of inquests begins in a courtroom in Warrington, England, built specifically for the case. There are nine members of the jury. They will consider a number of issues relating to the incident, including whether Duckenfield was responsible for manslaughter by gross negligence.

    April 2016 – After hearing testimony from more than 800 witnesses, the jury retires to deliberate.

    April 26, 2016 – The verdict is delivered, in what is called the longest case heard by a jury in British legal history. The jury finds, by a 7-2 vote, 96 fans were unlawfully killed due to crushing, following the admission of a large number of fans through an exit gate. It is decided Duckenfield’s actions amounted to “gross negligence,” and both the police and the ambulance service caused or contributed to the loss of life by error or omission after the crush began. Criminal charges will now be considered.

    June 28, 2017 – Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service announces that it has charged six people, including Duckenfield, with criminal offenses related to the disaster.

    March 14, 2018 – The BBC and other British media report that police officers would not be charged who were alleged to have submitted a misleading or incomplete report on the disaster to prosecutors in 1990.

    September 10, 2018 – Duckenfield pleads not guilty to the charges of manslaughter by gross negligence.

    January 14, 2019 – Duckenfield’s trial begins. Graham Mackrell, a safety officer at the time of the disaster, also stands trial.

    March 13, 2019 – The BBC and other media report that Duckenfield will not be called to present evidence during his trial.

    November 28, 2019 – Duckenfield is found not guilty of gross negligence manslaughter.

    July 27, 2021 – Andrew Devine, a fan injured in the Hillsborough disaster, dies. A coroner confirms Devine as the 97th victim of the disaster and rules he was unlawfully killed.

    January 31, 2023 – Britain’s National Police Chiefs Council and College of Policing apologize to families of the victims of the Hillsborough disaster. They also publish a response to a report published in 2017 that detailed the experiences of the Hillsborough families.

    December 6, 2023 – UK Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden announces that the UK government has signed the Hillsborough Charter, acknowledging “multiple injustices” and vowing that no families will suffer the same fates as the relatives of the victims.

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  • Colorado public defender ransomware attack may have exposed Social Security numbers, personal data

    Colorado public defender ransomware attack may have exposed Social Security numbers, personal data

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    The Office of the Colorado State Public Defender has acknowledged personal data may have been stolen during a ransomware attack that crippled the statewide agency in early February — but won’t say much else about the ongoing effort to restore its systems after the hack.

    Files “were copied without permission” during the cyberattack, which was discovered on Feb. 9, and those files may have included names, Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, medical information and health insurance information, the agency said in a statement Friday.

    Officials from the public defender’s office are still investigating whose personal data may have been stolen, and whether the personal data of attorneys or their clients was compromised, they said. A statement on the agency’s website urges “individuals” to remain vigilant against identity theft and fraud.

    It’s been more than a month since public defenders across the state were locked out of their computers and files in the ransomware attack and hundreds of court hearings were delayed over the next week because public defenders couldn’t do their jobs.

    Officials this week refused to answer questions from The Denver Post about what particular parts of the agency’s systems remain inoperable. In a ransomware attack, hackers use malware to hold an organization’s data hostage then demand a payment in cryptocurrency in order for organizations to regain access to that data.

    The public defender’s office also would not disclose the amount of ransom demanded or whether a ransom was paid. A statement on the agency’s website says the office has “made progress in returning to full operations.”

    Heavily redacted emails and text messages released to The Post by the Governor’s Office of Information Technology this week in response to an open records request mention the cyberattack recovery law firm Mullen Coughlin. Chief Deputy Public Defender Zak Brown would not confirm whether the public defender’s office is working with the firm.

    “We have provided all the information we are able to at this time,” he said in an email.

    A message left with the Pennsylvania-based law firm was not returned Wednesday.

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    Shelly Bradbury

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  • Suspect who allegedly shot and killed 3 people in Bucks County arrested in Trenton, police say

    Suspect who allegedly shot and killed 3 people in Bucks County arrested in Trenton, police say

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    A suspect who allegedly shot and killed three people Saturday morning in Falls Township has been captured in Trenton, authorities say. He now faces charges in New Jersey related to carjackings and weapon possession. 

    Andre Gordon, 26, was taken into custody in Trenton around 5 p.m. on Saturday, according to the Bucks County district attorney’s office. Police initially believed that he was barricaded inside a home in Trenton. He was captured at a separate location, where he surrendered and was apprehended without incident, 6ABC reported. He is also accused of two carjackings.

    RELATED: Police corner suspect of Falls Township fatal shootings in barricaded Trenton home

    Gordon was believed to be barricaded inside a residence at the 100 block of Phillips Avenue in Trenton, according to police. Initial reports stated that Gordon had hostages within the barricaded home, but police said that all residents were safely evacuated from the house.

    Gordon reportedly escaped the perimeter around the barricaded home before police could set it up, authorities say. He was allegedly walking on New York Avenue in Trenton when he was stopped, identified and taken into custody, 6ABC reported. He was found about two blocks from the home where police believed he was barricaded, CNN reported. 

    Saturday morning around 8:40 a.m., Gordon allegedly carjacked a vehicle in the parking lot of Donnelly Homes in Trenton before driving to Falls Township and committing a series of shootings, New Jersey attorney general Matthew J. Platkin said in a statement.

    Around 8:52 a.m. Saturday, Gordon reportedly shot and killed his 52-year-old stepmother Karen Gordon and his 13-year-old sister Kera Gordon in a home on Viewpoint Lane. Three other residents, including a minor, were in the home and hiding during the incident, said Bucks County district attorney Jennifer Schorn in a press conference.

    Around 9:01 a.m., Gordon then drove to Edgewood Lane and shot and killed 25-year-old Taylor Daniel, with whom he has two children. Four other individuals were in the residence; one individual, Daniel’s mother, was injured after being bludgeoned by Gordon with his AR-15-style assault rifle. She was taken to Jefferson Torresdale Hospital for her injuries, authorities say.

    Around 9:13 a.m., Gordon carjacked a second vehicle in a Dollar General parking lot on Bristol Pike in Morrisville, authorities say. Gordon stole the vehicle at gunpoint, police say. The 44-year-old driver of the vehicle was not harmed. The stolen grey 2016 Honda CRV was located on the 100 block of Miller Street, a short distance from the home Gordon was believed to be barricaded in.

    Authorities say that Gordon is believed to be experiencing homelessness and has ties in Bucks County and Trenton, and they believed him to have possession of an assault rifle used in the shootings along with additional weapons. When Gordon was arrested, police say he did not have any weapons.

    Gordon was taken to the Trenton Police Department for processing, 6ABC reported. He is being lodged at the Mercer County Correction Center. According to Platkin, Gordon was charged by New Jersey authorities with first-degree carjacking, second-degree possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, second-degree unlawful possession of an assault firearm, third-degree unlawful possession of a firearm without a serial number, third-degree receiving stolen property, fourth-degree unlawful possession of large-capacity ammunition magazines, and fourth-degree possession of hollow-point ammunition. 

    Gordon will remain in custody in New Jersey before being extradited to Pennsylvania, authorities say. Gordon “will be charged in Bucks County at the appropriate time,” according to the district attorney’s office. 

    A shelter-in-place order was put into effect Saturday morning in Falls Township amid the active-shooter situation, and was lifted just before 12:30 p.m. The Bucks County St. Patrick’s Day Parade scheduled for Saturday was canceled.

    “On a day where our Lower Bucks community celebrates our proud Irish heritage, Andre shocked our region by selfishly and abhorrently taking the lives of 3 individuals who have been confirmed to be his very own family,” U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-01) wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “As we continue to investigate what happened today, let us pray for the 3 Bucks County residents we lost today and pray for all of those impacted by this tragedy.”

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    Franki Rudnesky

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  • Two 18-year-olds charged with SEPTA bus stop shooting that injured 8 Northeast High students

    Two 18-year-olds charged with SEPTA bus stop shooting that injured 8 Northeast High students

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    Police have arrested two suspects tied to the shooting of eight teenagers who were waiting to board a SEPTA bus in Northeast Philadelphia last week, investigators said. 

    Jamaal Tucker and Ahnile Buggs, both 18, were identified Monday afternoon as two of the four suspects linked to Wednesday’s shooting near the intersection of Cottman and Rising Sun avenues in the Burlhome neighborhood. Three gunmen fired more than 30 shots at a group of people at the bus stop and then fled in a stolen vehicle driven by a fourth person, investigators said. All of the injured victims are students at Northeast High School. 

    Tucker surrendered to Philadelphia police on Friday, police said. Investigators were able to identify him using evidence gathered from the stolen, dark blue Hyundai Sonata that was shown in surveillance video from the shooting. The car had been recovered Wednesday night, hours after the shooting, police said.  

    Buggs was arrested Saturday after police and U.S. Marshals served search warrants on multiple properties. Buggs allegedly had a 40-caliber Glock 22 handgun with an extended magazine and a “switch” that turned the weapon into a fully automatic firearm, investigators said. Ballistics evidence collected from the shooting scene matched the same gun, police said. 

    Two other suspects remain at large, and police said more could face charges if investigators determine others had roles in orchestrating the shooting. 

    Tucker and Buggs each are charged with multiple of counts of attempted murder, aggravated assaulted, conspiracy and recklessly endangering another person. Buggs faces additional weapons charges, and Tucker has been charged separately with receiving stolen property and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, according to court documents. 

    Authorities shared few other details about the ongoing investigation into the shooting but suggested they are examining wider connections that it may have to other crimes in the city. 

    “We are not done until any group involved in this kind of conduct is done — until they do not exist anymore,” District Attorney Larry Krasner said. “And that is exactly where this investigation needs to go. It’s not about a single incident. It’s about every other incident that has any connection to it.”

    The shooting was one of several last week that involved SEPTA buses. Another shooting at a bus stop near Broad Street and Godfrey Avenue in Ogontz left a 17-year-old boy dead and four others injured. Police are still searching for the two gunmen in that shooting, but have not said whether there is evidence connecting that shooting with the one in Burholme. 

    “We are not ready to commit to that,” Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said. “We are working through this investigation now. We believe there may be (a connection), but we still have a lot of work to do.” 

    On Friday, police said a second stolen vehicle — a gray Kia Sportage — appears to be linked to the shooting in Burholme. The Kia was found parked where the Hyundai used in the shooting had been initially reported stolen. Police believe the suspects left the Kia and then stole the Hyundai used in the shooting. Both cars are being held as evidence, authorities said. 

    Surveillance video from the shooting last Wednesday shows three suspects emerging from the Hyundai, which was parked in the Dunkin’ Donuts lot near the intersection. After the shooting, the suspects can be seen getting back into the car, which fled the scene. 

    On Monday, Northeast High School’s 11th and 12th grade students were back at the school for the first time since the shooting. Classes had been virtually on Thursday and Friday. Those students will have virtual learning again Tuesday as the ninth and 10th grade students return to the building. The phased return is allowing “more small group and individualized support,” the school said in a statement. Crisis counselors will remain at the school to provide emotional support to the Northeast High community.

    Philadelphia police and school safety officers plan to maintain a visible presence in the area around Northeast High and nearby bus routes. 

    Eleven teenagers were struck in the two shootings that occurred in Burholme and Ogontz last week.

    “Gun violence doesn’t just leave physical scars,” Bethel said. “It tears at the fabric of our community — impacts our schools, impacts our families, and leaves a ripple effect of fear and trauma.”

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    Michael Tanenbaum

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  • 8 teens injured in shooting at SEPTA bus stop in Northeast Philly, police say

    8 teens injured in shooting at SEPTA bus stop in Northeast Philly, police say

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    At least eight teenagers were injured when a group of gunmen fired more than 30 shots at a SEPTA bus stop in Northeast Philadelphia’s Burholme neighborhood on Wednesday afternoon, police said.

    The shooting happened around 3 p.m. at the intersection of Rising Sun and Cottman avenues. Police received numerous 911 calls about gunshots erupting near a Dunkin’ Donuts at the intersection. 

    The wounded teenagers, all students at nearby Northeast High School, had been waiting to board a bus when three suspected gunmen got out of a parked car and opened fire at the bus, Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said during a news conference Wednesday afternoon. 

    The injured teens range between 15 and 17 years old, police said. They were taken to hospitals to be treated for their injuries, and the most seriously injured was a teen shot nine times and in critical condition. Wednesday evening police police released more information about the ages, injuries and conditions of each of the victims:

    • Male, 16, shot nine times in the torso; critical condition
    • Male, 1    6, gunshot wounds to the chest, right leg, and right arm; stable condition
    • Male, 15, shot twice, once in left arm, once in upper back; stable condition
    • Male, 15, shot in the lower back; stable condition
    • Female, 16, gunshot wounds to the left buttocks and right thigh, stable condition
    • Male, 17, shot in the left leg; stable condition
    • Male, 16, gunshot wound to the left leg, stable condition

    6ABC reported the suspected shooters wore masks and then left the scene in a dark blue Hyundai sedan driven by a fourth suspect. The vehicle reportedly was last seen crossing the Tookany Creek Bridge toward Cheltenham Township.

    Two SEPTA buses nearby the shooting scene — a Route 18 bus and a Route 67 bus — were each struck by bullets, spokesperson Andrew Busch said. No passengers or SEPTA employees were hit. One of the buses is being held at a nearby terminal for further investigation, police said.

    Bethel was joined at Wednesday’s news conference by Mayor Cherelle Parker, who pledged to address a surge in shootings over the last several days — including several at SEPTA bus stops. 

    “We will not be held hostage. We will use every legal tool in the toolbox to ensure the public health and safety of the people of our city,” Parker said. 

    Wednesday’s shooting happened at what is known as the Five Points intersection in the Burlhome neighborhood, where numerous businesses and at least four day cares and preschools are within the vicinity.

    The scene of the shooting is about 3/4 of a mile from Northeast High at 1601 Cottman Ave. The Kennedy Crossan School, a K-5 public school, also is two blocks away from the Five Points at Bleigh Avenue and Bingham Street.

    On Monday, a 17-year-old boy was killed and four other people were injured when two gunmen fired at a SEPTA bus that had stopped near the intersection of Broad Street and Godfrey Avenue. Two of the other people injured in that shooting were teenagers. 

    “It’s hard to sit here, in three days, and have 11 juveniles shot who were going and coming from school,” said Bethel, who served as the city’s chief of school safety before Parker appointed him to lead the police department. “The cowardly acts that we’ve seen over the last three days are unacceptable.”

    Crisis counselors will be available on Thursday at Northeast High and at Imhotep Institute Charter High School, which is less than a mile from the scene of Monday’s shooting in Ogontz.

    “As a result of what we’ve seen over the last three days, we’re going to be ramping up our resources significantly,” Bethel said. “I want parents and families to know that we’re going to be along our corridors across the entire city of Philadelphia until we can figure out exactly what’s going on in this situation — and whether it’s linked to the situation on Monday.”

    Philadelphia School District Superintendent Tony B. Watlington said he and his colleagues are “heartbroken and angry” about the uptick in gun violence involving students from city schools, and SEPTA Transit Police Chief Charles Lawson said his department will work with city leaders to stop the recent pattern of shootings on and near city buses. 

    On Sunday, a 27-year-old man was fatally shot in the Oxford Circle neighborhood of Northeast Philadelphia after an argument escalated on a Route 59 bus, investigators said. Then on Tuesday evening, a 37-year-old man was shot and killed as he stood in the doorway of a Route 79 bus near Broad Street and Snyder Avenue in South Philadelphia. The gunman opened fire after an argument, police said.

    Authorities have not yet made any arrests in the string of shootings.

    Lawson said SEPTA planned to “be aggressive” in trying to stop the gun violence impacting the transit system. 

    “What we can definitively say is overwhelmingly the pattern that we see in our system is that individuals who are armed – overwhelmingly illegally – get into verbal arguments which escalate to violent encounters and then the armed individual uses the weapon,” Lawson said at a separate news conference earlier Wednesday. 

    Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner vowed to prosecute the people responsible for Wednesday’s shooting. 

    “We will catch the people who did this. We will hold those people in custody. We will charge them and we will vigorously prosecute them,” Krasner said. “And we will give them the consequences that they absolutely deserve for this devastating and horrifying act.”

    Below, watch Parker, Bethel and other city leaders speak during the press briefing at the scene of Wednesday’s shooting.

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  • Escaped prisoner Alleem Bordan captured by U.S. Marshals in Cambria County

    Escaped prisoner Alleem Bordan captured by U.S. Marshals in Cambria County

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    Alleem Bordan, the prisoner who escaped from police custody at Temple Health’s Episcopal Hospital, was captured Thursday in Cambria County by the U.S. Marshals Service after more than three days on the run, officials said.

    Bordan was taken into custody at a home in Johnstown, more than 200 miles away from Philadelphia, Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal Ryan Clark said. He allegedly had been driven there with help from people aware of his situation and taken to a house where he knew the residents. Bordan has a criminal history in Johnstown, Clark said.

    Bordan did not resist arrest when U.S. Marshals went to the home, Clark said. He allegedly told authorities he was aware of the news reports about his escape. He is being held at Cambria County Prison and awaiting extradition. 

    Authorities have not yet determined whether anyone else will face charges for helping Bordan, Clark said. 

    Bordan, 29, was arrested Sunday for allegedly stealing a car from a food delivery driver on Feb. 22. Police found him sleeping in the vehicle, which was parked on the 1100 block of Frankford Avenue in Fishtown. He was later taken to Episcopal Hospital in East Kensington to be treated for back pain.

    After he was discharged, Bordan broke free from the officers who were escorting him to a police car. Surveillance video shows him running through a gas station parking lot while still handcuffed. Footage also shows him enter a home nearby a short time later and then get into a gold Hyundai that left the area, investigators said.

    On Tuesday afternoon, U.S. Marshals went to a home on Columbia Avenue, near Fairmount Park, in an effort to find Bordan after his criminal history helped trace him to the property, police said. Bordan allegedly opened the door and rushed past police, jumping down a 30-foot embankment to get to the SEPTA tracks below. He then ran north to escape from investigators.

    That was the final time Bordan was seen before he was captured.

    Police had warned that Borden was “possibly armed” and offered a $2,500 reward for information leading to his arrest. Clark was not armed when he was taken into custody, Clark said. He’s expected to be charged with escape in addition to charges stemming from the alleged car theft. 

    Bordan is one of several prisoners in the Philly region who have escaped custody in the last year. Last month, authorities caught alleged murderer Shane Pryor, 17, four days after he escaped custody outside Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where he was being treated for an injured hand.

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  • Iraq Prison Abuse Scandal Fast Facts | CNN

    Iraq Prison Abuse Scandal Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s some background information about the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal which took place during the Iraq war.

    Abu Ghraib prison was a US Army detention center for captured Iraqis from 2003 to 2006. An investigation into the treatment of detainees at the prison was prompted by the discovery of graphic photos depicting guards abusing detainees in 2003.

    The facility was located 20 miles west of Baghdad on 280 acres.

    At the height of the scandal, the prison held as many as 3,800 detainees.

    Most of the detainees lived in tents in the prison yards.

    The abuses took place inside the prison in cell blocks 1A and 1B.

    Eleven US soldiers were convicted of crimes relating to the Abu Ghraib scandal. Seven of those were from Maryland-based 372nd Military Police Company. A number of other service members were not charged but reprimanded.

    November 2003 – A detainee dies during an interrogation at Abu Ghraib.

    January 2004 – Spc. Joseph M. Darby discovers photos on a CD-ROM of Iraqi prisoners being abused. He reports the abuse to superiors, prompting an investigation.

    April 4, 2004 – Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba releases his report to Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez about misconduct in the 800th Military Police Brigade.

    April 28, 2004 – “60 Minutes II” broadcasts graphic photos of Iraqi detainees being humiliated and tortured.

    April 30, 2004 – The New Yorker publishes an article by Seymour Hersh reporting details in the Taguba report on the abuses at Abu Ghraib.

    April 30, 2004 – Taguba’s report detailing his investigation of the 800th Military Police Brigade is released.

    Taguba’s report states that the following abuses happened in this incident:
    – Punching, slapping and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet.
    – Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees.
    – Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing.
    – Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time.
    – Forcing naked male detainees to wear women’s underwear.
    – Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped.
    – Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them.
    – Positioning a naked detainee on a box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture.
    – Writing “I am a Rapest (sic)” on the leg of a detainee accused of rape, and then photographing him naked.
    – Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee’s neck and having a female soldier pose for a picture.
    – A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee.
    – Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee.
    – Taking photographs of dead Iraqi detainees.

    May 4, 2004 – Gen. George W. Casey Jr. announces that in the past 16 months, the US Army has conducted more than 30 criminal investigations into misconduct by US captors during both Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.

    May 5, 2004 – US President George W. Bush records interviews with Al Arabiya and US-sponsored Al-Hurra networks expressing his disgust with the mistreatment of Iraqi detainees.

    May 6, 2004 – During a joint news conference with King Abdullah II of Jordan, Bush expresses remorse “for the humiliation suffered” by Iraqi prisoners at the hands of US troops.

    May 6, 2004 – The Justice Department announces that it is looking into three suspicious deaths of detainees, two in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, and the involvement of the CIA and contractors in the deaths.

    May 7, 2004 – US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld testifies before the Senate and House Armed Services Committees. “These events occurred on my watch…as Secretary of Defense, I am accountable for them and I take full responsibility…there are other photos – many other photos – that depict incidents of physical violence towards prisoners, acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhuman.”

    May 10, 2004 – Bush views some of the photos at the Pentagon and announces his firm support for Rumsfeld.

    May 12, 2004 – Rumsfeld testifies before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee.

    August 24, 2004 – An independent commission headed by former US Secretary of Defense James Schleslinger reports that what took place at the prison was due largely to “sadism” on the part of officers working the night shift, but that responsibility for the mistreatment of prisoners went higher up the chain of command, back to Washington, DC.

    August 25, 2004 – The Fay-Jones report on the Abu Ghraib scandal finds 44 instances of abuse, some of which amounted to torture.

    February 15, 2006 – A new set of graphic photographs and video from Abu Ghraib are aired on the Australian television network SBS’s program “Dateline.” The photos are reportedly from the same period in 2003 that the previous photos were shot, not new incidents.

    June 1, 2006 – Sgt. Santos Cardona, an Army dog handler, is found guilty of two of five counts against him, including aggravated assault and unlawfully using his dog to threaten detainees. He is sentenced to 90 days hard labor and a reduction of rank. He must also forfeit $600 of pay per month for a year.

    September 1, 2006 – Control of Abu Ghraib is handed over to the Iraqis after all of the detainees are transferred elsewhere.

    February 2008 – A documentary about the Abu Ghraib scandal by Oscar-winning director Errol Morris, “Standard Operating Procedure,” debuts at the Berlin Film Festival.

    June 30, 2008 – Former detainees of Abu Ghraib prison file a lawsuit against CACI Premier Technology, a military contractor who supplied the army with interrogators.

    February 21, 2009 – Abu Ghraib reopens after major renovations which include a new gym, barber shop, sewing room, outdoor recreational areas, a library, and computer room. Its name is changed to Baghdad Central Prison.

    September 2009 – Saleh et al v. Titan Corporation et al, a federal class action lawsuit alleging abuse at Abu Ghraib by civilian contractors from CACI International is dismissed by a federal appeals court.

    2012 – Defense contractor Engility Holdings Inc. agrees to pay 71 former detainees at Abu Ghraib and other sites $5.28 million to settle a lawsuit filed in 2008.

    April 2014 – Iraq closes the prison due to security concerns.

    March 20, 2015 – US District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein orders the Defense Department to release photos that show detainees being abused in detention centers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    January 18, 2017 – Hellerstein rules that the government must release an estimated 2,000 additional photos of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and other military facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    August 23, 2019 – The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals allows a 2008 lawsuit filed by former detainees against CACI Premier Technology to move forward. The court denied CACI’s request to immediately appeal a lower court’s ruling that the company can be sued and is not immune from civil suit as a government contractor.

    June 28, 2021 – The US Supreme Court denies CACI Premier Technology’s petition, clearing the way for the 2008 lawsuit to proceed.

    Spc. Megan Ambuhl
    372nd Military Police Company
    October 30, 2004 – As part of a plea deal, Ambuhl pleads guilty to one charge of dereliction of duty. She is discharged from the Army without prison time.

    Sgt. Javal S. Davis
    372nd Military Police Company
    February 1, 2005 – Pleads guilty as part of a plea agreement.
    February 5, 2005 – Is sentenced to six months in a military prison.
    Late May 2005 – Is released after serving approximately three months.

    Pfc. Lynndie England
    372nd Military Police Company
    May 2, 2005 – England pleads guilty to reduced charges as part of a pretrial agreement.
    May 4, 2005 – A mistrial is declared after she pleads guilty but then states that she did not know her actions were wrong.
    September 21, 2005 – England’s second court-martial trial begins at Fort Hood, Texas.
    September 26, 2005 – England is found guilty of four counts of maltreating detainees, one count of conspiracy and one count of committing an indecent act.
    September 27, 2005 – Is sentenced to three years in prison and given a dishonorable discharge.
    March 2007 – Is released from military prison after serving half of her 36-month sentence.
    2009 – Her biography, “Tortured: Lynndie England, Abu Ghraib and the Photographs that Shocked the World,” is published.

    Staff Sgt. Ivan “Chip” Frederick II
    372nd Military Police Company
    October 20, 2004 – Pleads guilty to conspiracy, dereliction of duty, maltreatment of detainees, assault, and committing an indecent act under a plea agreement.
    October 21, 2004 – Is sentenced to eight years in prison and also sentenced to a forfeiture of pay, a dishonorable discharge and a reduction in rank to private.
    October 1, 2007 – Is paroled after serving approximately three years in a military prison.

    Spc. Charles Graner
    372nd Military Police Company
    January 14, 2005 – Graner is found guilty of nine of 10 counts under five separate charges.
    January 15, 2005 – Graner is sentenced to 10 years in prison, downgraded to the rank of private with loss of pay, and receives a dishonorable discharge.
    August 6, 2011 – Graner is released from prison.

    Spc. Sabrina Harman
    372nd Military Police Company
    May 16, 2005 – Is found guilty on six of the seven charges for her role in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal.
    May 17, 2005 – Sentenced to six months in prison. Harman is demoted to private, and receives a bad conduct discharge after she finishes the sentence.

    Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan
    Director, Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center during the fall of 2003. Jordan is the only officer charged with prisoner abuse.
    April 28, 2006 – Charged with eight counts, including disobeying an order, dereliction of duty, cruelty, false statements, fraud and interfering with an investigation.
    August 28, 2007 – Acquitted of charges that he failed to control soldiers who abused detainees, but is found guilty of disobeying a general’s command not to talk about allegations of abuse at the prison. On August 29, he is sentenced with a reprimand.
    January 10, 2008 – Cleared of all wrongdoing, and the conviction and reprimand are removed from his record.

    Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski
    Commander of the Army Reserve’s 800th Military Police Brigade, in charge of all 12 Iraqi detention facilities, including Abu Ghraib.
    May 5, 2005 – She is demoted from brigadier general to colonel by President Bush after an extensive investigation and is cited for two of four allegations against her, dereliction of duty and shoplifting. The probe clears her of “making a material misrepresentation to an investigating team” and “failure to obey a lawful order.”

    Col. Thomas Pappas
    Commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade.
    May 2006 – Reprimanded, fined, and relieved of command after using muzzled dogs inside interrogation rooms.

    Lt. Col. Jerry L. Phillabaum
    Commander, 320th MP Battalion.
    April 2004 – He is reprimanded and relieved of command of the 320th Military Police Battalion for his role in the scandal.

    Spc. Jeremy Sivits
    372nd Military Police Company
    May 19, 2004 – Sivits pleads guilty as part of a pretrial agreement with prosecutors that leaves him open to testify against other soldiers charged in the scandal. He is sentenced to a year of confinement, discharge for bad conduct, and is demoted.

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  • NBA G League player injured in shooting outside Olney nightclub

    NBA G League player injured in shooting outside Olney nightclub

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    Philadelphia police are investigating a shooting outside a nightclub in Olney on Sunday morning that seriously injured a player for the NBA G League’s Long Island Nets.

    The shooting happened around 12:40 a.m. outside the 5th Street Lounge on the 5900 block of North 5th Street, authorities said. Officers found 23-year-old Terry Roberts suffering from a single gunshot wound in his upper chest. He was taken to Jefferson Einstein Hospital and listed in critical condition.

    A preliminary investigation found that multiple people had gotten out of a silver Nissan Altima and fired toward people standing outside the nightclub. A private security guard returned fire, but police said it was unknown whether any of the suspects were struck. The Nissan fled the scene shortly after the gunfire.

    Roberts is a guard for the Brooklyn Nets’ developmental league team in Long Island. Hours before the shooting, he played in a G-League game at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, New York, where he scored 15 points in a win against the Mexico City Capitanes. Roberts is a Long Island native and played his final college basketball season at the University of Georgia. 

    A team spokesperson for the Long Island Nets said Roberts’ condition has improved since Sunday.

    “Terry Roberts was the victim of a crime on Sunday morning in Philadelphia, and we are in the process of gathering more information about the incident,” the spokesperson said. “He is currently in stable condition, and he is expected to make a full recovery. Our thoughts are with him and family at this time.”

    On Monday, 6ABC reported Roberts had driven to Philadelphia as a favor to a friend and a gun fight broke out while they were visiting the nightclub.

    “It’s been tough,” Terrace Roberts, his father, told the TV station. “An avalanche of emotions, internal pain and handling the situation at hand.”

    Philadelphia police said the shooting investigation is ongoing.

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  • Mother Bethel AME Church’s stained glass windows smashed by vandal

    Mother Bethel AME Church’s stained glass windows smashed by vandal

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    A vandal shattered four windows at the historic Mother Bethel AME Church in Society Hill, police say.

    Police found the front-door window smashed, along with three stained glass windows, when they arrived to the church at 419 S. Sixth St. at 9:31 a.m. Monday. No arrests have been made, and no description of the suspect is available at this time. The investigation is ongoing.

    MORE: Francisville fire damages 2 buildings, displaces about 20 people

    A cleaning crew first alerted church officials to the damage on Monday morning. Rev. Mark Kelly Tyler, the church’s pastor, does not believe racism or religious intolerance was a factor in the vandalism.

    “I’ve been on the receiving end of that before,” he said. “And generally there’s some kind of messaging to enforce the fact that that’s what people are trying to say. Same with some kind of religious violence. There’s nothing to suggest that, or even anything political. Seems like we were in the wrong place at the wrong time as far as this particular person was concerned.”

    Tyler believes repairs to the windows will cost nearly $20,000. The church is now seeking to upgrade its security system, which could add another $12,000 in fees.

    Mother Bethel AME Church sits on the oldest parcel of land continuously owned by Black people in the U.S. It is the mother church of the African Methodist Episcopal denomination, which was formed in 1816 by the pioneering Philadelphia preacher Richard Allen. The current structure was built in 1890, and was designated a historic landmark in 1974.

    The Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia is now fundraising to help cover the repairs, an effort Tyler says was “unexpected and unsolicited.” The windows will be boarded while the church and its supporters work to amass the money.

    Mother Bethel AME Church recently served as the launchpad for a week-long interfaith march from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. Protestors, who departed the church on Feb. 14, are calling for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. They are expected to arrive at the White House on Wednesday.

    This story has been updated with comments and information from Rev. Mark Kelly Tyler.

    Follow Kristin & PhillyVoice on Twitter: @kristin_hunt
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  • Man wanted for attempted sexual assault in Fishtown, police say

    Man wanted for attempted sexual assault in Fishtown, police say

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    Philadelphia police are searching for a man who assaulted a woman in Fishtown on Sunday night. 

    The man approached a 24-year-old woman from behind after she left a gym on the 400 block of East Girard Avenue shortly before 8 p.m., police said. He made threats against the woman and assaulted her on the sidewalk, according to investigators. He then fled the scene when the woman began yelling. 

    MORE NEWS: Philly is planning an expanded ‘Rocky’ festival to drive global tourism

    On Thursday, police released surveillance video that shows the suspect walking down Girard Avenue and passing bystanders near the intersection of Girard and Frankford avenues. The man continues down Girard Avenue and is seen stalking the woman from behind just before the assault took place. 

    The suspect is believed to be in his early 30s, police said. He’s about 6 feet tall with a stocky build and a full beard. He was last seen wearing a black Nirvana sweatshirt, a brownish-green winter coat and black Under Armour track pants with white stripes on the side.

    Police said anyone with information about this incident can call the Special Victims Unit at (215) 685-3260 or call 911.

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  • Bucks County man accused of beheading father wanted Gov. Shapiro to ‘join forces’ against feds, prosecutors say

    Bucks County man accused of beheading father wanted Gov. Shapiro to ‘join forces’ against feds, prosecutors say

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    Justin Mohn, the man accused of decapitating his father at their home in Levittown, allegedly traveled to a Pennsylvania National Guard base before his arrest Tuesday in an effort to incite a state rebellion against the federal government, Bucks County prosecutors said Friday.

    Mohn, 32, allegedly told prosecutors he had hoped to speak with Gov. Josh Shapiro to convince him to “join forces” with his purported militia and raise arms against the feds. Mohn was arrested while trespassing on the grounds of the National Guard’s headquarters in Fort Indiantown Gap — about 100 miles away, in Lebanon County — where he was found with a loaded handgun and surrendered to authorities, police said.

    Mohn is charged with first-degree murder and abuse of a corpse in the killing of Michael Mohn, 68, a longtime employee of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Philadelphia. He allegedly purchased his gun Monday at a gun shop in Croydon, Bucks County District Attorney Jennifer Schorn said at a news conference Friday.

    An autopsy determined that Michael Mohn was fatally shot in the head before his son allegedly used a knife and machete to sever his neck, Shorn said. The gun recovered by police was missing a single round.

    In a video Mohn posted to his YouTube channel Tuesday, he held up his father’s head in a plastic bag and described him as a traitor, prosecutors said. Mohn read a prepared speech that continued for more than 14 minutes, including threats against the Biden administration, a rant about the nation’s borders and a proclamation that he was declaring martial law as the new acting U.S. president, according to investigators. 

    Mohn is a graduate of Neshaminy High School and Penn State University. He previously spent time in Colorado working as a contractor for Microsoft, but returned home to live with his parents, prosecutors said. He recently had been unemployed. 

    Michael Mohn’s body was found by his wife, who notified authorities and said her son had left the home in his father’s car. The YouTube video, which had been filmed at the family home, was later brought to the attention of investigators as they searched for Mohn.

    Investigators arrested Mohn at the National Guard base at 9:25 p.m. Tuesday after tracking him down by using cell phone location data. But they feared the possibility of an extended search.

    “We were discussing that if Justin hadn’t been apprehended, can you imagine the manhunt that would have been underway shortly thereafter and how everything would have been focused on finding him — and the entire community would have been in a state of panic,” Middletown Township Police Chief Joseph Bartorilla said.

    Schorn said the investigation remains in its early stages and may continue for months. It’s possible Mohn will face federal charges, or additional charges in Bucks County, Schorn said. Authorities are looking into whether he had any established contact with others who planned to take up his cause.

    Mohn has no history of diagnosed mental health issues and there are no records of him having a voluntary or involuntary commitment for inpatient psychiatric treatment, Schorn said.

    “With the evidence we have gathered thus far, this individual was acting with clear mind, aware of his actions and proud of his consequences,” she said.

    Days before purchasing his gun, Mohn allegedly surrendered his state medical marijuana card so he could legally purchase a firearm, prosecutors said. Investigators have not detailed any events that led up to Mohn’s alleged actions or how long he may have been planning them.

    The video Mohn posted online was removed by YouTube and other social media platforms hours after it was uploaded. Schorn said it appeared to have been viewed thousands of times.

    “That was incredibly concerning,” Schorn said. “I mean, obviously, from evidentiary value, that video is very important and we need to have possession of that. But it’s quite horrifying how many views we understand it had before it was taken down.”

    Since Mohn’s arrest, reports have emerged of neighbors describing unusual behavior from him. His former roommate in Colorado told CNN that Mohn had shown signs of paranoia for years and thought the government was “out to get him.” Mohn was an amateur writer and musician who shared his work online, including material that alluded to his views. In multiple lawsuits Mohn filed against the U.S. government, he reportedly claimed his student loans were illegitimate because he wasn’t able to get a job and pay them back — which he attributed to being an “overeducated white man.” 

    Middletown Township police knew of three prior incidents involving Mohn, but none of them indicated a serious threat that required more attention, Bartorilla said. In 2011, he was involved in an argument in the driveway of his family’s home, but it was not a criminal matter. In 2019, Mohn told police he had been threatened by someone from an insurance company that he was suing in Ohio and that he wanted it documented. 

    The third incident was a report from an unnamed employer in Philadelphia who called to express concern about Mohn’s behavior at work. The employer was seeking legal advice about how to fire Mohn, but police referred the matter to other legal resources.

    “We keep hearing that police were outside of his home at various times — outside of what I just mentioned — (but) I can only speak for the Middletown Township Police Department,” Bartorilla said. “We were not.”

    The concern from Mohn’s former employer in Philadelphia stemmed from his online writings, authorities said. Middletown police did not follow up on the matter with Mohn.

    “Based on the information that the officer gathered and the decision the officer made, I don’t think we needed to have contact,” Bartorilla said.

    Mohn is being held without bail at the Bucks County Correctional Facility.

    “Our thoughts are with this family,” Schorn said. “This is the unimaginable. That’s going to take time. We’re going to provide the resources for this family, but this is truly just unimaginable for them.”

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  • Escaped prisoner Shane Pryor has been apprehended, police say

    Escaped prisoner Shane Pryor has been apprehended, police say

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    Teen prisoner Shane Pryor was apprehended Sunday night after his escape from a local hospital prompted a multi-day search. 

    Pryor, 17, was arrested on a SEPTA bus at 3rd Street and the Roosevelt Boulevard by members of the U.S. Marshals Eastern Pennsylvania Violent Crimes Fugitive Task Force. Pryor, who was wanted for a 2020 murder, escaped from authorities outside the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) on Wednesday. Michael Diggs, 18, was arrested Friday for allegedly helping Pryor escape by picking him up near the hospital. 

    Investigators said they learned Sunday morning that Pryor was frequenting the Hunting Park neighborhood following his escape. At 6:30 p.m., Pryor was seen boarding a SEPTA bus at 9th Street and the Roosevelt Boulevard. Marshals and task force officers caught up with the bus and boarded it at 3rd Street, quickly identifying Pryor. He was arrested without incident, police say. 

    A black handcuff key was found in Pryor’s pocket during his arrest and secured by detectives. Reports from last week said that Pryor was not wearing handcuffs at the time of his escape. 

    “To bring Shane Pryor into custody four days after escaping, is a result of tremendous collaboration between the U.S. Marshals Service and the Philadelphia Homicide Unit,” said Robert Clark, supervisory deputy marshal, in a statement. 

    Pryor escaped around noon on Wednesday after he was transported to CHOP from the Philadelphia Juvenile Justice Services Center for a hand injury. He ran from escort staff after getting out a transport car in the emergency room parking lot near 34th and Spruce streets before heading inside. Surveillance video released on Thursday shows him asking a receptionist in CHOP’s Hub for Clinical Collaboration to use the phone. She denied his request and Pryor left, later borrowing a phone from a woman on Civic Center Boulevard to call Diggs. 

    Pryor has been charged with shooting and killing a woman in a Holmesburg alleyway in 2020 and has been in custody since then, though he maintains his innocence. He was 14 at the time but is charged as an adult. In December, a judge denied his request to return the case to the juvenile court. This may have influenced his decision to escape, his attorney Paul DiMaio said. 

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    Michaela Althouse

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  • The Hechinger Report stories covered a tumultuous year in education news – The Hechinger Report

    The Hechinger Report stories covered a tumultuous year in education news – The Hechinger Report

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    Editor’s note: This story led off this week’s Higher Education newsletter, which is delivered free to subscribers’ inboxes every other Thursday with trends and top stories about higher education. 

    Dear Reader, 

    Saying it’s been a wild year in higher education news seems like the understatement of the century. (I think even non-education nerds would agree!) Thank you for sticking with The Hechinger Report as we tried to make sense of it all. 

    The first half of the year felt like we were all collectively holding our breath, waiting for the United States Supreme Court to rule on two massive cases, one on student loan forgiveness and another on affirmative action in college admissions. As we waited, I wrote about the poster child of the anti-affirmative action movement, Jon Marcus broke down federal data that shows the gap between Black and white Americans with college degrees is widening, and Meredith Kolodner reported, as she has before, about the fact that many flagship universities don’t reflect their state’s Black or Latino high school graduates. 

    The court ultimately ruled against student loan forgiveness and against the consideration of race in college admissions. 

    Shortly thereafter, led by Jon Marcus and Fazil Khan, our team began working on The College Welcome Guide, a tool that helps students and families go beyond the rankings and understand what their life might be like on any four-year college campus in America. Jon’s reporting made it  clear that the culture wars are beginning to affect where students go to college, and we wanted to help ensure people had the many types of information they needed to make the best choice, regardless of who they are or what their political orientation is. 

    All the while, we continued covering the country’s community colleges. Jill Barshay wrote about how much it costs to produce a community college graduate, and why some community colleges are choosing to drop remedial math. Jon covered the continuing enrollment struggles at these institutions. I reported on a new initiative to target job training for students at rural community colleges, as well as a guide to help community colleges make this kind of training more effective. 

    We also examined some of the many routes people choose to take instead of going to college. I reported on what happens when universities get into unregulated partnerships with for-profit tech boot camps, and Meredith and Sarah Butrymowicz reported on risky, short-term career training programs that exist in a “no man’s land of accountability.” Tara García Mathewson exposed the tricky system that formerly incarcerated people have to navigate if they want to get job training and professional licenses once they’re out of prison. 

    And though we love to dig deep into subjects and understand exactly how these big issues affect the lives of regular people, we also zoomed out this year. Meredith, working alongside Matthew Haag from The New York Times, discovered that Columbia University and New York University benefit massively from property tax breaks allowed for nonprofits (they saved $327 million last year alone). After their story was published, New York state legislators proposed a bill that would require these two institutions to pay those taxes and  funnel that money to the City University of New York system, the largest urban public university system in the country.

    In 2024, we will continue to cover equity and innovation in higher education with nuance, care and a critical eye. Is there a story you think we should cover? Reply to this email to let us know.

    For now, we hope you have a warm and restful break. See you in the new year. 

    Olivia

    P.S. As a nonprofit news outlet, The Hechinger Report relies on readers like you to support our journalism. If you want to ensure our coverage in 2024 is as extensive and deeply reported as possible, please consider donating.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

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  • A timeline of Elijah McClain's death and the trials of the officers and paramedics accused of wrongdoing | CNN

    A timeline of Elijah McClain's death and the trials of the officers and paramedics accused of wrongdoing | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Three police officers and two paramedics have faced juries on charges of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide stemming from the 2019 death of Elijah McClain in Aurora, Colorado.

    But the path to court was anything but straightforward.

    McClain, a 23-year-old massage therapist, was confronted by police officers on August 24, 2019, after someone reported seeing a person wearing a ski mask who “looks sketchy.” After officers wrestled him to the ground and paramedics injected him with a potent sedative, McClain suffered a heart attack on the way to a hospital and died days later, authorities said.

    Prosecutors initially declined to bring charges in his death, but the case received renewed scrutiny following the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests in spring 2020. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis appointed a special prosecutor to reexamine the case, and in 2021 a grand jury indicted three officers and two paramedics in McClain’s death.

    The defendants have now faced juries in three separate trials in 2023, to different results. Officer Randy Roedema was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and assault, while officers Jason Rosenblatt and Nathan Woodyard were acquitted of all charges. Paramedics Jeremy Cooper and Peter Cichuniec will soon learn their fate.

    Here’s a timeline of McClain’s death, the resulting investigation, the protests that brought renewed attention to the case and the criminal trials.

    Three White officers stopped McClain in Aurora on August 24, 2019, while he was walking home from a convenience store in the Denver suburb after 10:30 p.m., according to a police overview of the incident.

    Carrying iced tea in a plastic bag, McClain eventually was in a physical struggle with the officers after, police say, he resisted arrest.

    Early in the encounter, an officer told McClain to stop, and when McClain kept walking, two officers grabbed his arms, the overview reads. McClain says, “Let me go … I’m an introvert, please respect the boundaries that I am speaking,” according to body camera footage from one of the officers.

    After an officer asked him to cooperate so they could talk, McClain tells officers he had been trying to pause his music so he could hear them, and tells them to let him go, the overview reads.

    Eventually, one officer is heard telling another that McClain tried to grab his gun.

    All three officers tackled McClain to the ground, and Woodyard placed him in a carotid hold – in which an officer uses their biceps and forearm to cut off blood flow to a subject’s brain – police said in the overview document. McClain briefly became unconscious, and Woodyard released the hold, the document reads, citing the officers.

    Body camera video of the encounter shows McClain at some point saying he couldn’t breathe.

    Because the hold was used, department policy compelled the officers to call the fire department for help, authorities said. Aurora Fire Rescue paramedics arrived and saw McClain on the ground and resisting officers, the overview says.

    Paramedic Cooper diagnosed McClain with “excited delirium” and decided to inject him with the powerful sedative ketamine, the overview says.

    McClain suffered a heart attack on the way to a hospital, authorities said. Three days later, he was declared brain-dead and taken off life support.

    The Adams County coroner’s office submitted an autopsy report on November 7, stating the cause and manner of death were “undetermined.” The report cited the scene investigation and examination findings as factors leading to that conclusion.

    Roughly two weeks later, the Adams County district attorney, Dave Young, declined to file criminal charges against any of the first responders. In a letter to the Aurora police chief on November 22, Young referred to the undetermined cause of death as one of the factors.

    “The evidence does not support a conclusion that Mr. McClain’s death was the direct result of any particular action of any particular individual,” Young wrote. “Under the circumstances of this investigation, it is improbable for the prosecution to prove cause of death beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury of twelve. Consequently, the evidence does not support the prosecution of a homicide.”

    Also on November 22, after the district attorney’s decision, Aurora police released the officers’ body camera videos.

    “We certainly recognize and understand that this has been an incredibly devastating and difficult process for them over these last several weeks,” then-Police Chief Nick Metz said.

    A police review board concluded that the use of force against McClain, including the carotid hold, “was within policy and consistent with training.”

    City officials announced on February 6 they would hire an independent expert to review the case.

    George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, was fatally restrained by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25. Bystander video of the encounter sets off outrage and leads to widespread protests, including in Aurora, under the Black Lives Matter movement.

    In early June, the three officers who confronted McClain were assigned to administrative duties, primarily due to safety concerns because police and city employees were receiving threats, a police spokesperson said.

    On June 9, Aurora police and city officials announced changes to police policies, including a ban on carotid holds.

    Ten days later, Gov. Polis signed police accountability legislation into law, requiring all officers to use activated body cameras or dashboard cameras during service calls or officer-initiated public interactions. The measure also barred officers from using chokeholds.

    Polis also signed an executive order appointing Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser to investigate McClain’s case, the governor announced on June 25. More than 2 million people had signed a petition urging officials to conduct a new investigation.

    Demonstrators carried a giant placard during protests on June 27, 2020, outside the police department in Aurora.

    On June 27, protesters in the Aurora area gathered on Highway 225, temporarily shutting it down in a demonstration calling for justice in McClain’s death.

    On June 30, the US attorney’s office for Colorado, the US Department of Justice’s civil rights division and the FBI’s Denver division announced they have been reviewing the case since 2019 for potential federal civil rights violations.

    Aurora police on July 3 fired two officers who they say snapped selfie photographs at McClain’s memorial site, located where he was killed, while they were on duty.

    Officer Rosenblatt also was fired, with police saying he received the photo in a text and replied, “ha ha,” and did not notify supervisors. The photos were taken on October 20, 2019.

    A third officer seen in the photos resigned days before a pre-disciplinary hearing, police said.

    On July 20, the Aurora City Council approved a resolution for an independent investigation of McClain’s death to proceed.

    A mural of Elijah McClain, painted by Thomas

    The McClain family filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city of Aurora on August 11.

    “Aurora’s unconstitutional conduct on the night of August 24, 2019, is part of a larger custom, policy, and practice of racism and brutality, as reflected by its conduct both before and after its murder of Elijah McClain, a young Black man,” the lawsuit stated.

    On the same day, Aurora city officials announced the police department would undergo a “comprehensive review” by external experts on civil rights and public safety.

    Aurora city officials released a 157-page report on February 22, detailing the findings of the independent investigation it commissioned into McClain’s death.

    The report asserted that officers did not have the legal basis to stop, frisk or restrain McClain. It also criticized emergency medical responders’ decision to inject him with ketamine and rebuked the police department for failing to seriously question the officers after the death.

    01 elijah mcclain

    Elijah McClain’s mom has watched the bodycam video ‘over and over’

    Sheneen McClain, Elijah’s mother, cried while reading the report.

    “It was overwhelming knowing my son was innocent the entire time and just waiting on the facts and proof of it,” Sheneen McClain told CNN at the time. “My son’s name is cleared now. He’s no longer labeled a suspect. He is actually a victim.”

    Elijah McClain’s father said the report only confirmed what the family already knew. “The Aurora police and medics who murdered my son must be held accountable,” LaWayne Mosley said after the report’s release.

    In response to the report, city officials began work on establishing an independent monitor to scrutinize police discipline, Aurora City Manager Jim Twombly said.

    “I believe the investigative team has identified the issue that is at the root of the case: the failure of a system of accountability,” Twombly said after the report’s release.

    On September 1, the state attorney general announced a grand jury indicted officers Roedema, Rosenblatt and Woodyard and paramedics Cichuniec and Cooper.

    Each was charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide as part of a 32-count indictment.

    The five people charged in the case are (clockwise, from top left): Randy Roedema, Nathan Woodyard, Jeremy Cooper, Peter Cichuniec and Jason Rosenblatt.

    Roedema and Rosenblatt also were indicted on one count of assault and one count of crime of violence. Cooper and Cichuniec were further indicted on three counts of assault and six counts of crime of violence.

    “Our goal is to seek justice for Elijah McClain, for his family and friends and for our state,” Weiser, the state attorney general, said. “In so doing, we advance the rule of law and our commitment that everyone is accountable and equal under the law.”

    The charges brought McClain’s parents to tears. “I started crying because it’s been two years,” Sheneen McClain said. “It’s been a long journey.”

    “Nothing will bring back my son, but I am thankful that his killers will finally be held accountable,” Mosley, his father, said through the attorney’s release.

    On September 15, the Colorado attorney general’s office released a 112-page report that found the Aurora police had a pattern of practicing racially biased policing, excessive force, and had failed to record legally required information when interacting with the community. The report also found the police department used force against people of color almost 2.5 times more than against White people.

    The state investigation also revealed the fire department had a pattern and practice of administering ketamine illegally, the attorney general’s office said.

    The state attorney general’s office and the city of Aurora agreed November 16 on terms of a consent decree to address the issues raised in the office’s report two months earlier.

    On November 19, the city finalized an agreement to pay $15 million to McClain’s family to settle the federal civil rights lawsuit.

    The cause of death in McClain’s case was changed in light of evidence from the grand jury’s investigation, according to an amended autopsy report publicly released September 23.

    The initial autopsy report had said the cause of death was undetermined. But the amended report listed “complications of ketamine administration following forcible restraint” as the cause of death.

    The manner of death remained undetermined in the amended report.

    “Simply put, this dosage of ketamine was too much for this individual and it resulted in an overdose, even though the blood ketamine level was consistent with a ‘therapeutic’ concentration,” pathologist Dr. Stephen Cina wrote in the amended autopsy report. “I believe that Mr. McClain would most likely be alive but for the administration of ketamine.”

    Cina could not determine whether the carotid hold contributed to the death, but “I have seen no evidence that injuries inflicted by the police contributed,” he wrote.

    On September 20, Roedema and Rosenblatt, two of the officers who arrested McClain, stood trial on charges of manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and assault.

    Prosecutors said they used excessive force on McClain, failed to follow their training and misled paramedics about his health status. In contrast, defense attorneys placed blame on McClain for resisting arrest and on the paramedics who treated him.

    Roedema was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and assault. Rosenblatt was acquitted of all charges.

    On October 16, the third officer, Woodyard, stood trial on charges of reckless manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. Like in the earlier trial, prosecutors argued he used excessive force on McClain, while defense attorneys argued the force was necessary and blamed the paramedics.

    Woodyard was found not guilty on all charges.

    McClain’s mother Sheneen told CNN affiliate KUSA she no longer has faith in the justice system after Woodyard’s acquittal.

    “It lets us down, not just people of color, it lets down everybody,” she said. “They don’t do the right thing, they always do the bare minimum.”

    Cooper and Cichuniec, the paramedics who treated McClain, stood trial on charges of reckless manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.

    Both paramedics testified they believed McClain was experiencing “excited delirium” during his confrontation with Aurora police officers, and their treatment protocol was to administer a ketamine dose they believed was safe and would not kill a person.

    Prosecutors said the paramedics “didn’t take any accountability for any single one of their actions” while testifying at their trial.

    “They both stood there while Elijah got worse and worse and did nothing,” Colorado Solicitor General Shannon Stevenson said. “They are both responsible.”

    Cooper and Cichuniec were found guilty of criminally negligent homicide Friday.

    Cichuniec was also found guilty of a second-degree unlawful administration of drugs assault charge.

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  • OPINION: Halting corporal punishment in schools should be a New Year's resolution

    OPINION: Halting corporal punishment in schools should be a New Year's resolution

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    As a former public-school teacher, I know that my students sometimes acted out when they didn’t receive the additional educational supports they needed. Too often they then faced a choice: Get your licks or go home.

     “Licks” meant an assistant principal beat their backsides with a paddle. “Go home” meant suspension. Those who chose the former would come back to class dejected, disengaged and depressed.

    Many people may assume that what I saw is an outlier, but the latest Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) shows that at least 19,395 students experienced corporal punishment during the 2020-21 school year. Every time the CRDC data is released, I am reminded that corporal punishment continues in our schools today, and I am convinced it can be put to an end tomorrow.

    To make this change, advocates must demand that their education leaders end this inhumane practice.

    Corporal punishment has been banned in a majority of states since the mid 1990s. Nevertheless, during the 2017-18 school year, the CRDC reported, 69,492 students received corporal punishment, on top of 92,479 students in 2015-16. The most recent number is much lower mainly because in-person instruction and data reporting were disrupted during the pandemic.

    Corporal punishment remains expressly legal in 16 states. Banning the practice in just 10 of those states, including the one I taught in, Alabama, along with Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas, would reduce the number of schools using corporal punishment by over 99 percent. Despite the small number of cases in the remaining six states where it is legal — Arizona, Idaho, Kentucky, South Carolina, North Carolina and Wyoming — it is still important to ban corporal punishment there to prevent individual schools from continuing the practice.

    Additionally, explicitly prohibiting corporal punishment in states that have not yet done so (Connecticut, Kansas, Indiana, Maine, New Hampshire, and South Dakota) would protect future generations.

    Related: State-sanctioned violence: Inside one of the thousands of schools that still paddles students

    Corporal punishment needs to end because there is no evidence that retaining it decreases misbehavior. In other words, in the states that allow it, corporal punishment is not helping students control their behavior.

    Instead, corporal punishment is associated with unintended negative consequences. These include higher rates of mental health problems, more negative parent-child relationships, lower cognitive ability, lower academic achievement, lower self-esteem and higher risk for physical abuse.

    While practicing corporal punishment has never made sense, it makes even less sense now.

    Ending corporal punishment is also a civil rights issue: It is disproportionately used against Black students, students with disabilities and male students. News reports have highlighted that Black students receive physical punishment at twice the rate of white students nationwide; research shows that educators’ perceptions of student behavior are based on the students’ race — rather than the actual behavior — and that these perceptions contribute to the disproportionate rates in school discipline.

    While practicing corporal punishment has never made sense, it makes even less sense now that millions of students have not returned or are continuing to miss school since pandemic-based disruptions.

    While states revisit their discipline policies, they should also reduce the “go home” exclusionary discipline practices (suspensions and expulsions), which can undermine children’s attachment to school. Such harsh punishments increase the chances of students dropping out and feed the school-to-prison pipeline. In addition to those punishments increasing the number of school days students miss, research shows that exclusionary discipline can decrease students’ likelihood of accumulating course credits, reduce their likelihood of graduating and lower their chances of earning a postsecondary credential.

    Related: Preventing suspensions: Tackle discipline problems with empathy first

    In my experience observing its impacts, corporal punishment has a similar distancing effect on students as suspensions and expulsions — making school feel like a place where they do not belong.

    Schools still need to address misbehavior, of course, but there are better ways to do this. They can replace corporal punishment with evidence-based practices that help create safe and inclusive learning environments for all students. Such practices — including advisory systems, in which students meet regularly with a staff member about academic challenges, and “looping,” in which students have the same teacher for multiple years — build positive school-student relationships. These positive relationships can help prevent physical violence and bullying.

    Restorative practices, also backed by research, typically foster dialogue in “circles” or “conferences” in which educators help students listen to each other and to teachers in order to resolve conflict and build community. For me, this often meant chatting with students in a hallway about why they acted out, giving them a chance to share their side of the story, regroup and refocus on school.

    Recent research shows that investing in student supports, including social and emotional learning and mental health, is a better way to make schools truly safe, along with professional development for teachers and school staff. States should act quickly to make these alternatives more widely available and make schools less like prisons and more like everywhere else.

    Corporal punishment is prohibited in almost every facet of life in the U.S. except schools. It is banned in military training centers, child care centers and juvenile detention facilities, and cannot be carried out as a sentence for a juvenile crime. The vast majority of children (76 percent) across the globe are protected by law from corporal punishment. Let’s use this current round of CRDC data to spur action to give our students better choices than the one my students faced.

    Stephen Kostyo is an Impact Fellow at the Federation of American Scientists. Before working in education policy, Kostyo taught middle and high school math and science — and was recognized as a high school Teacher of the Year by his peers in 2015.

    This story about corporal punishment was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

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    Stephen Kostyo

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