B. McCain / K. McCain/ Awuite / Moser / Morton / Wynn / Cumberpatch / Anthony / White

Semi-riot brings new calls for change. Student tasings shock public into action.

"There were kids not getting back to class, cussing, yelling, trying to hurt officers.”

 

For months, even years, parents of North Mecklenburg High School students and some local government officials have been warning Charlotte- Mecklenburg Schools administrators that the school was a “ticking time bomb,” ready to explode at any moment.

It was simple arithmetic, they reasoned. Cram 3,000 students into a school built to accommodate 1,400, add a sprawling campus with multiple exit doors and isolated places and, sooner or later, something big, and bad, is bound to happen.

Last week, something did. In an incident that teetered precariously in the edge of a riot for about a half an hour last Thursday, fights broke out in and around the school lunchroom, two students were tasered by Huntersville policemen, and 15 students wound up being arrested.

With a small fleet of television news helicopters hovering overhead and ill-informed cell phone chatter radiating out of the school, the incident was quickly blown out of proportion. An avalanche of police — five different law enforcement agencies responded — descended on the sprawling campus on Highway 115 in southern Huntersville, and the nearby roads were clogged as parents arrived to rescue their prized possessions. When the dust had finally settled, old debates on school construction and overcrowding, discipline, and even the police department’s use of force, resumed with new vigor.

While interim school superintendent Frances Haithcock promised swift and sure action, CMS critics lined up with their best skeptical expressions on their faces. Arch-conservative county commissioner Bill James trotted out his “moral sewer” argument again, while District 1 school board representative Larry Gauvreau of Huntersville, once again trumpeted the need to get “the thugs” out of the school. “I told (interim superintendent) Frances (Haithcock) that I want these students’ records; I want to know who these people are who think they can terrorize students and intimidate officers and jeopardize the safety of the schoolhouse,” Gauvreau says.

“We had a riot out there and nobody wants to talk about it. That’s got to change. I told (Haithcock) that I hold her accountable and she must be responsible for restoring the trust of the public by expelling the thugs and criminals from our schools. “There is a larger root cause and that is we have, and always have had, major school discipline problems.” Gauvreau’s District 1 school board opponent, Rhonda Lennon, agrees that the response to this event must be swift and sure. The transgressors need to be removed from school and Haithcock’s performance will be under intense scrutiny. “You hate say to it, but this is probably going to be her (Haithcock’s) litmus test,” says Lennon. “She’s said she’s going to get tough on this kind of thing. We’ll see.” There were conflicting reports as to whether or not the students involved in last week’s fracas were habitual troublemakers. Dr. Ralph Taylor, who oversees school discipline for CMS, told the Charlotte Observer that some of them were familiar to his office, and at least one, Lamanuel Wynn was arrested, away from school, just two days prior to the incident at North.

Ominously, however, several sources at North said most of the kids arrested weren’t “the real troublemakers.” Whatever the case, the incident frayed parental nerves and produced numerous calls for some kind of action. “We warned them this was going to happen,” says North Mecklenburg parent and School Leadership Team member Tom Davis. “We had one kid murdered several weeks ago and that hasn’t been solved. What do they expect police and parents to do?” The murder Davis referred to occurred off campus. North Meck student Gregory Goodson (16), was found dead on Sept. 30 in a wooded area off of Simpson Road in the Oakdale area, the result of a gunshot wound to the stomach. There has been some speculation that the killing was gang related and may have involved other North Meck students. Police have declined to speculate and have not made any arrests. There is no connection between that event and last week’s incident.

The incident

Last week’s drama begin with a fight between two male students,17- year-old Brendan McCain and an unnamed minor, in the school cafeteria. Ironically, given post-event discussion about the need for more police officers, the event actually took place within sight of school resource officer (SRO) Brad Habenicht. “It began as a physical altercation between two young men,” says Lt. Barry Graham of the Huntersville Police Department, supervisor of school resource officers assigned to Huntersville’s two high schools and two middle schools. “The school resource officer (Habenicht) and a school security associate went to split them up, and the sister of one of the combatants, Kenyatta McCain, attacked them.

The SRO gave her three or four warnings, told her if she did not back up, she would be tased, and she did not comply so the taser was deployed.” Police officials say the tasing of Kenyatta McCain worked as planned. She was subdued and the crowd dispersed. Within minutes, more than 20 more police officers from Huntersville, Cornelius, Charlotte, the Highway Patrol, and eventually the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Department, arrived at the scene.

With the school under at least a semi-lockdown — no one allowed in or out of class or other activities — the situation appeared to be under control. But that changed when the bell rang and it became time to move students to a new class and lunch period. A variety of incidents occurred in the cafeteria and elsewhere during, and just after, the class change. Graham says the second tasering occurred as police officers attempted to remove the McCains and the minor involved in the original fight from the scene. Large groups of students gathered to protest — “They were acting out their frustrations,” says Huntersville Police Chief Phil Potter — and were ordered to disperse. “A couple resisted,” says Graham. “They were given plenty of opportunities to comply and one refused. He (one of the unnamed minors) came towards the officer in what the officer perceived as a threatening manner and was (also) tased. The rest of the arrests took place throughout the school and with different officers.

There were kids not getting back to class, cussing, yelling, trying to hurt officers.” From the time of the fight, it took six to seven minutes to get the kids back to class, according to Graham. It was another three to five minutes after that before the situation was brought under control again. From the initial fight until everything was finally brought under control for good, 25 to 30 minutes elapsed. The school was effectively, if not officially, locked down for the rest of the day as students were dismissed in groups. The school’s administration decided to let out car riders and students who drove a little bit early because it seemed prudent to release kids a few hundred at a time as opposed to all at once. By the time the bus riders were released, things were back on a normal schedule.

No extra charge?

HPD’s Potter and Graham agree that, while necessary, the tasing of McCain, and the wildfire rumors that spread about it, contributed to the unrest that followed. Potter says some of those arrested told police they were upset that the only female involved was tased while the males who were actually fighting (possibly about another female, according to some of the arrestees) were not. Graham says charges were also made that Habenicht gave Kenyatta McCain a little extra jolt. Those charges are inaccurate, says Graham, and reflect a miscomprehension of how a taser works.

After she was tased, Kenyatta McCain kept trying to get back up, and “the (SRO) kept telling her to stay down. “You have people when you use a taser on them, some might tense up, some may talk or yell, others make no noise whatsoever,” Graham says. “She kept trying to get up. She was not necessarily belligerent, she just kept trying to get up. Everybody was saying (the officer) kept pulling the trigger,” says Graham. “That’s just not true. We downloaded the information off of the taser (each taser has a “black box” style recording unit), and it was discharged one time.”

SROs had tasers before the rest of the HPD received tem this year, and in the wake of the incident there have already been calls for removing them from the school environment. Potter says he “disagrees vehemently” with that idea. “The primary purpose of tasers in schools is not to use them on students, but on outsiders who might be causing a serious problem,” he says. “That wasn’t the case here, of course, but we aren’t talking about junior high kids. These were older, almost adults, and individuals who were warned repeatedly and chose not to walk away.” The department is investigating the tasing, as it does all uses of force. Graham says some members of the public have also questioned why so many police officers were sent to the scene. Graham says it’s standard procedure for all nearby officers on duty but not otherwise occupied to respond, or at least gravitate towards the scene should they be needed. In all about 25 officers responded, according to Graham.

More cops/COPs?

Parents and public officials rushed quickly to call for a variety of solutions to the perceived causes of last week’s incident. For beginners, there will be scrutiny of the punishment meted out to the students involved. A 10-day suspension is required but more severe penalties, including expulsion, could result. CMS in the past has demonstrated what can at the very least be characterized as an inconsistent response to such events. No announcements have been made as yet.

 Gauvreau, among others, is awaiting word. Neither CMS’ director of high schools Ann Clark nor Taylor, the discipline chief, returned calls to The Herald. Beyond that, there are already calls for sending troublesome kids to alternative sites, for placing more SROs in the schools, and for speeding up the construction of a new north Mecklenburg high school. Davis and other parents believe what’s needed is an alternative school in the north Meck area, designed specifically for “problem” students. They wouldn’t just serve suspensions there. Once committed, that’s where they’d finish their high school careers. “We’re proposing a permanent, alternative school for the north Mecklenburg middle and high schools as a pilot program,” says Davis. “We will benchmark other school systems across the country to see what they are doing about alternative education so we don’t have to reinvent the wheel.”

The North area School Leadership Teams (SLTs) had a previously scheduled, joint meeting last Thursday night. They asked North Principal Joey Burch and CMS’ Clark to attend, but received no response from either. Likewise, there has been no response from Taylor, who was invited two weeks ago to meet with the SLTs on the subject of a permanent alternative school. That was before the latest incident.

Huntersville’s 18-month-old proposal to add additional SROs at North and Hopewell (they would also assist at nearby middle schools) has also been resurrected after last week’s events. Huntersville Town Manager Jerry Cox says that while last week’s incident would likely not have been prevented by having a second SRO on campus, it does serve to further illustrate the need for an additional uniformed officer at both Hopewell and North Meck high schools.

“The fundamental issue is that both schools (Hopewell and North) due to their size really do need at least one more sworn police officer,” Cox says. “I think the need and the reason to have additional SROs had been identified well in advance of this occurrence. This is just an unfortunate event to further emphasize the point.” HPD’s Potter says an extra SRO could perform a variety of useful functions, including education and preventative work. “There’s not much time for any of that right now,” he says. CMS has balked at the extra SRO idea because it would create an inequity. The two Huntersville schools would have two officers while other CMS schools would still just have one.

Cornelius Mayor Gary Knox says he believes the incident is as much the result of overcrowding as it is inadequate security personnel. Knox, like Davis and many others, says the best answer is to accelerate as much as possible the construction of a planned new high school on Bailey Road. Even the opening of the new Mallard Creek High School, they both agree, will reduce North Meck’s student population only briefly. With the addition of 30 new mobile classrooms this year, Davis says it’s clear to him CMS is preparing North for big crowds for a long time to come. Because a new high school in north Mecklenburg is not on the radar screen just yet, Knox suggests that the answer lies in unconventional funding mechanisms such as a local bond initiative n i.e., a school construction bond paid for by the north Mecklenburg towns. The county’s favorite “emergency funds,” Certificates of Participation (COPs) might also come into play.

Knox says regardless of how that’s handled, he has asked CMS for $2 million from the proposed school construction bond package, if approved by voters, for design and other reconstruction work so that construction of a new high school — presumably on land the town purchased next to the new Bailey Road Middle School site in Cornelius — could begin as soon as construction funding could be obtained. In the interim, Knox says he has advocated, along with Huntersville Mayor Phillips, the need for additional uniformed police officers in north Mecklenburg schools.

“For over a year, I have been in the same room with Mayor (Kim) Phillips sharing with (former superintendent) Pughsley that there was a need for a second school resource officer at North Meck, not necessarily debating the merits, but saying there was an actual need and that the school was a ticking time bomb,” Knox says. “She told him that with that many kids, it would be almost impossible to expect one officer to have the resources to stop what amounted to a simple incident escalating, and that’s exactly what happen a year and six months later.”

Same old …

Arrests are up at North Mecklenburg High School this year — through Oct. 5 there were a total of 13 at North compared to eight at Hopewell. The vast majority of them for fighting. Graham says rather than being an epidemic, it’s simply a matter of more people in the same space. He says with the addition of about 400 students to the campus this year, arrests-per-capita are level or just slightly above last year. Of course, that was before last Thursday when the total number of students arrested eclipsed the first six weeks of school. Following that logic, it stands to reason that reducing the population at North Meck — and any other overcrowded high school — is a prudent course of action to take. So far, though, it appears as though advocates for more classroom space and more SROs are not going to get their way. It’s even possible that those arrested last week will be back in school by Nov. 11, assuming all receive only 10-day suspensions, which is consistent with CMS policy. To that end, Davis, a retired Army officer, quotes one of his former fellow officers: “If you always do what you always did, you always get what you always got.”

— Tucker Mitchell and Brett Freeman contributed to this story.