Anna Lee|The Greenville News
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When a drug-sniffing dog named Baro searched Eastside High School earlier this year, four grams of marijuana were found and two students were arrested, according to records obtained by The Greenville News and Independent Mail.
It’s a common sight in schools in the Upstate —police dogs in hallways and classrooms, their noses turned to the air for the smell of contraband.
“The dogs act as a great deterrent for any would-be drug users or drug sellers who might have contemplated bringing illegal drugs to school,” said Sgt. Ryan Flood of the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office.
While school and law enforcement officials say the dogs help ensure a safer environment, a civil rights groupsays the searches have the opposite effect on students.
Bringing police dogs to schools “can only exacerbate an already stressful situation, leaving students terrorized and feeling unsafe in their own school,” said Susan Dunn, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina.
The overwhelming majority of Upstate parents surveyed, however, say they have no problem with thedogs.
"It helps to keep drugs out of schools, and it allows the police to be seen in schools without there necessarily being something negative going on," Williamston parent Kitty Lee said in response to a Facebook post.
Arrangements for drug searches at schools vary by school district
The use of drug dogs varies by school district, with some spending thousands of dollars per year on private contractors to conduct the searches and others relying on the local sheriff's office K-9 unit.
In Greenville County, K-9 Baro and his handler routinely conduct random "sniffs" at every middle and high school several times a year, Flood said.Sheriff's office records show Baro was deployed 113times between August 2017 and February 2019 and searched nearly 350classrooms and 11,000 lockers.
"We conduct sniffs if the principal or administration specifically requests it, if a SRO requests it and on a random basis," Flood said. "Obviously, if something comes up at a particular school, then we may have more visits than others."
Some schools are searched more than others. Wade Hampton and Eastside high schools have each been searched at least eight times since the beginning of the school year. Berea High has been searched six times, Berea Middlefive times and Carolina High twice, records show.
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In rare cases, the sheriff's office will conduct searches on school buses, Flood said.
The arrests at Eastside High in January are the only arrests made due to searches during the current school year, according to records. In the 2017-18 school year,two Berea High students were arrested after a total of 7 grams of marijuana was found during two drug different sweeps, records show.
Baro is part of the School Enforcement Unit, an investigative division of the Greenville County Sheriff's Office, said district spokeswoman Beth Brotherton. The cost of the unit is split 50-50, with the school district paying$1.2 million in fiscal year 2018 for salaries, benefits and vehicle expenses for the officers in the unit, Brotherton said. The unit includes 11 school resource officers, a K-9 handler and four other positions.
In Pickens County, dog searches are instigated at the request of school administrators, said Creed Hashe, chief deputy of the Pickens County Sheriff’s Office.
Searches also occur if the sheriff’s officereceivesleads that “there may be drug activity at a particular school, and the visibility of a police K-9 might serve to dissuade future drug activity,” Hashe said.
Three Pickens County schools have been searched in the last 12 months, Hashe said. No narcotics were found at Pickens High or Liberty Middle, he said. A small amount of marijuana was found at Daniel High, though no arrests were made.
Law enforcement officials said schools are placed on partiallockdowns during drug sweeps, which typically involve an area search of classrooms,lockers, hallways, playgrounds or vehicles in parking lots.
“We never conduct searches utilizing a dog on a person or student,” Hashe said.
School districts in Greenville and Anderson have similar policies.
During a classroom search in Anderson School District 2, which covers Belton and Honea Path, students are told to leave their belongings behind and wait in the hallway while a dog is led around the room by its handler, said Carlos Brooks, human resources director for the district. An administrator stays with the handlerat all times, Brooks said.
The district uses an outside contractor for drug sweeps at the high school and its two middle schools. Each dog search costs the district $318, Brooks said.Searches are conducted 12 times a year, and the dates aren't revealed in advance, Brooks said.
The dogs are contracted to search for illicit drugs as well as over-the-counter medication, tobacco, gunpowder and firearms, according to the district.
At Belton-Honea Path High, dogs have found tobacco, vaping paraphernalia and over-the-counter medication but no narcotics, Brooks said.
Dogs have searched Anderson District 1 schools about 30 times this school year, said Superintendent Robbie Binnicker. The district includes Palmetto, Powdersville and Wren high schools and their feeder schools.
"So far this year we've had 20 alerts and11 finds," Binnicker said. "Most were marijuana related."
Kyle Newton,spokesman for Anderson District 5, which includes T.L. Hanna and Westside high schools,said no studentthere hasbeen found with drugs on school property after eight sweeps in the last two years.
The district works with the Anderson County Sheriff's Office, which searches the middle and high schools at no charge.
"When K-9s are at the schools, ACSOand school officialsjust searchrandom classrooms and walk around the student parking lot," Newton said in an email.
The point of the searches isn’t so much to make arrests as it is to keep students from bringing drugs into schools, said Joel Raines, the owner ofRaids Corps in Spartanburg, which has contracts with Anderson District 1 and seven other Upstate school districts. The company also provides dogs to private citizens to search for drugs.
“What we want to be more than anything else is to be a deterrent, not catch people with drugs,” Raines said.
Dogs are brought to schools about once a monthon average, he said. The most common drug that dogs find is marijuana, though Raines said he’s seeing more oil with THC, the active ingredient in cannabis,at schools as well.
“The districts we’ve been in the longest, we don’t find as much," Raines said. "The districts we haven’t been in long, we find a lot."
Anderson 1 administrators notify the student and parents whenever a search dog indicates on the student's locker or car, even if no contraband is found, Binnicker said. He said the dogs are able to detect narcotics days after a student comes into contact with drugs, so it's possible they're indicating on residual scent.
If drugs are located, administrators immediately contact the school resource officer, Binnicker said.
The district spends about $13,000 a year on dog searches, he said.
'Should law enforcement be searching schools?' Some prefer contracted help
Raines said many schools prefer to use a private contractor instead of local law enforcement to conduct drug sweeps.
“There’s the whole question of should law enforcement be searching schools and all that back and forth,” Raines said.
The issue made national headlines in 2003 when a police raid at Stratford High School in Berkeley County led to a $1.6 million class-action lawsuit settlement. About 140 Stratford students were present when Goose Creek policeofficers burst into a school hallway shouting, waving guns and forcing some students to the ground while a barking dog sniffed for weapons and drugs, according to Charleston's Post and Courier newspaper. None were found.
As part of the settlement, the Berkeley County School District and Goose Creek police agreed to change their policies for drug sweeps and restrict the use of dogs around students, the Post and Courier reported.
State law allows officials to conduct a “reasonable search” of any person who comes onto school property. School administrators can search lockers, desks, vehicles, book bags, purses and wallets “with or without probable cause.” Strip searches are prohibited under the law.
Flood, the spokesman for the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office, said he doesn’t believe the searches interfere with student learning.
“Although some stuff might be perceived as intimidating or distracting, the overall goal is to offer a distraction-free, safe environment for the kids, and that’s what this measure does,” Flood said.
