Thursday, March 20, 2008

Richardson Police Department has yet to do something about “Officer Grabass”

By Nathan Morgan of Richardson City News

When the Richardson Police Department recently received a complaint about one of their RISD Safety Resource Officers getting overly loose and aggressive in physical contact with at least one member of the faculty, the RISD and RPD down-played what was said to be a string of incidents the likes of which would have gotten an average person in a public school cuffed and charged with sexual assault, or at least sexual harassment...and most certainly been humiliated out of a job on the police force. After a couple of days suspension, a tounge-lashing and spanking, Officer Grabass is said to be patrolling our streets, probably toting a higher caliber weapon. There is little wonder why physical violence, drug use, and distructive social groups have grown to uncontrollable levels in Richardson schools and, given the town's proclivity to put lipstick on a pig, why the response has been to pucker up, kiss and make up, and keep it within the family. (That's humorous on many levels.)

In the early 80's Richardson schools enjoyed the spotlight for being on the top of the list of best in nation. It was also a time when the courts ruled that thousands of apartments in the district discriminated against families with their "adult only" rental agreement policy. The face of the neighborhood began to transform as the demographic of the average RISD student went from 2.2 children per family-oriented, gainfully-employed owner/occupied home to extended illegal immigrant family crashing in a two bedroom, one bath rental unit and loaning the address to friends who also enrolled their english-challenged children.

Photo not provided by Richardson City News

Anxious to get their hands on the public tax money paid districts based on the number of students who show up for class, educators looked the other way as activist judges made it a crime to verify imigration status as a condition for enrollment in public schools.

Meanwhile, a growing population of students frustrated at the lack of substance in the average public school educational experience are lashing out at society, finding their own means to satisfy their need for community recognition. Oh, sure. There are the model-student, statistical outlyers on one end of the bell curve. But the median, mean and mode has been shifting in a way that has transformed our precious RISD schools from the once-renowned centers of academic excellence to adolescent misfit daycare facilities, complete with flourishing drug trade, gang violence and an administration engaged in public denial.

It is said that the first step in solving problems is to admit one exists. So far, that hasn't happened. As the community wonders why and how RISD has been allowed to restrict investigation and enforcement activities that would be conducted by the city's paid police force on campus, drug and violence activity has increased to levels that have become almost impossible to ignore and cover up. Faced with another humiliating exposure for failed policy, RISD and the RPD must decide to confront the problem, head on, or continue to allow the community's schools to be training grounds for the larger next generation of residents at Huntsville.

When one examines the underlying sociology of these events, it becomes reasonably clear that the social systems we adults have established are failing our youth. Like so many centrally-controlled government entities, soceity at-large grows to resent the untouchable defenses erected by crony buerocrats who hide behind blind suport of less intelligent recipients of sheepskin that has become no more challenging to acquire than the paper found in a common public restroom.

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• Crime > Sexual Assault

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