A Queens teen has come forward with allegations that safety agents at Jamaica's Hillcrest High School took him to a room and beat him on two separate occasions. Rohan Morgan, who says he waited to publicize the incidents until after he graduated because he feared retaliation, alleges that both beatings took place after safety agents caught him using his cell phone during school hours. The first assault allegedly took place in March, leaving him with bruises and a knee injury, his lawyer tells the Times. And WCBS reports that he was allegedly handcuffed during the beating.
The second incident allegedly occurred in July, while Rohan was attending summer school. The teen says safety agents injured his knee and middle finger, then took him to a psychiatric hospital! The school’s safety agents are members of the NYPD but are not armed; in a statement, a police spokesman says that Rohan "became irate and pushed and struck the agent. The student was restrained and subsequently removed to Long Island Jewish Hospital for psychiatric evaluation." Rohan's lawyer has filed a notice of claim stemming from the incidents, and a Department of Education rep says, "We are looking into this. We take all these types of situations seriously."
At a press conference yesterday outside the school, the NYCLU and community group Desis Rising Up & Moving (DRUM) called for an investigation into what they say is a problem that's been going on for years. Monami Maulik of DRUM told reporters: "We're hearing stories about a separate room where children are taken into and then abused or roughed up by school safety agents." In February, the Daily News reported that some students claimed they could smuggle in contraband like cell phones and Sidekicks by paying $1 a day to certain security guards.
Donna Lieberman at the NYCLU has sent a letter to schools Chancellor Joel Klein and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly [pdf] that also accuses the safety agents of "unlawful arrests." (More on that here.) But George Geller, a spokesman for the union that represents school safety agents, tells WCBS, "This is a force that is 75 percent female, 95 percent black and Latino and the idea that they are persecuting poor students in New York City is preposterous."
