A cop's decision to sport a body camera and search a Massachusetts middle school for a book has raised serious concerns among civil liberties experts, a new report shows. The Berkshire Eagle reported Wednesday on mounting fears after the Great Barrington plainclothes police officer who entered an ei...

A cop’s decision to sport a body camera and search a Massachusetts middle school for a book has raised serious concerns among civil liberties experts, a new report shows.

The Berkshire Eagle reported Wednesday on mounting fears after the Great Barrington plainclothes police officer who entered an eighth grade classroom at W.E.B. Du Bois Regional Middle School.

“Police going into schools and searching for books is the sort of thing you hear about in communist China and Russia," Ruth A. Bourquin, senior and managing attorney for the ACLU of Massachusetts, told the local news outlet. "What are we doing?”

For their part, police say they were obligated to investigate a complaint about the book “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe, a memoir about gender identity that contains sexually explicit illustrations and language, the report notes.

  • BeautifulMind ♾️English
    10•11 months ago

    It’s the same for police. The exception are when there is a fiduciary relationship, if you created the peril, or if you start rescuing someone you can’t leave them worse off. Usually these exceptions don’t apply to police, even if you call and ask for help, they have no duty to act.

    Clear takeaway: when they said “Because this complaint was made directly to the police department, we are obligated and have a duty to examine the complaint further" it really means they wanted to do it but didn’t want to be held responsible for wanting that. (after all, if they had no choice in the matter it’s not their fault they’re doing ghoulish police-state things most people don’t want done)

    • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】
      2•11 months ago

      So I wonder:

      1. Does MA have some statutory requirement, such as how many states have statutes requiring police to followup to a 911 hangup call, perhaps requiring a response to complaints about sexual deviance with children or something, and perhaps the police had no choice but to make contact with the teacher. They didn’t find the book. Could have been showing up a friendly warning of a nutjob parent, and the ACLU is taking liberty with the term.

      2. What was the extent of the search? IMO, even showing up at the school and entering the classroom whilst having eyeballs, let alone a camera, is a search.

      3. What the fuck is wrong with parents that they can’t have these conversations with their kids, or… Fuck, I don’t know, check the book out at the library and read it to their kid and talk about it in a context they are comfortable with? Oh k forgot, that requires emotional intelligence and these people who try to control their environment instead of their emotions are fucking ghouls that nobody wants to fuck.