The uniformed Police Department employees who patrol New York City's public schools are too quick to bully students over minor infractions, a civil rights group charged in a paper issued Sunday.
The New York Civil Liberties Union said that in recent years it has received hundreds of complaints from both students and teachers about foul language, rough treatment and unwarranted arrests by the NYPD's 4,827 school safety agents.
The safety agents are civilian employees of the police department and don't carry firearms. About 70 percent are women.
The group said the agents, whose duties include breaking up fights and operating metal detectors, have also improperly taken on the role of enforcing school rules -- like the district's unpopular ban on iPods and cell phones.
Donna Lieberman, the group's executive director, said too many safety agents go about their job with an authoritarian zeal more appropriate for guards screening prisoners.
This from the C0ntraCostaTimes.
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