On November 19, 2021, students at Little Elm High School in Texas planned to support a fellow student who had been sexually assaulted on a bus – by planning a walkout. But their school didn’t stop at reportedly mishandling her abuse.
They invited police to break things up – and that’s when things got excessively violent.
Viral video footage showed police relentlessly spraying the protesting students with pepper spray, bruising one girl with a baton, and Tasering another boy to the ground. Four students were even arrested!
And these kids’ parents are NOT happy.
“You have demonized our kids, demonized the sexual assault victims, allowed our children to be tased, manhandled, arrested and jailed,” one parent cried at a recent board meeting.
Many agreed that they no longer want officers on their childrens’ campus. But what should have happened instead?
First of all, the police should have never been called. Everyone has the right to protest, and the school should have taken students’ concern about sexual assault more seriously in the first place!
Police don’t prevent sexual assault, they don’t protect our children, and they don’t accept critique when they fail to keep us safe. We need a better way to handle sexual assault. And those kids, despite their school and violent police, had the right idea – to challenge the system and put the victim first.