In the wake of a 15-year-old Roseville High School student’s detainment, suspension, arrest and criminal charge after challenging an administrator’s authority, Eye of the Tiger decided to investigate how RHS handles willful defiance.

A female sophomore student (Eye of the Tiger has chosen to not release the student’s name due to her pending criminal charges from this incident) engaged in a verbal altercation with RHS assistant principal Jason Wilson on Aug. 24. She and her family are now preparing for her day in court as a result of the events that unfolded that day.

According to the student, the altercation began when she verbally opposed campus dress code after witnessing Wilson dress coding another student. On the grounds of her profanity and tone of voice, Wilson requested that the student follow him to the administration building in order to de-escalate the situation. Because she did not comply, Wilson called RHS youth service officer Marc Kelley for assistance. When the student continued to deny their order, Kelley handcuffed her.

The student said Wilson asked for her name and threatened suspension when she first refused to follow him to the administration building.

“I just wouldn’t say my name, and I didn’t go to the office,” the student said. “I didn’t feel like I needed to for saying my opinion.”

While Kelley could not comment on the specifics of the incident because it involves a minor’s open court case, he said that any student should always comply with an administrator’s orders.
“If the vice principal asks you your name, give him your name,” Kelley said. “If the vice principal asks you to go over there, you should probably go over there. If they need to talk to you, they need to talk to you.”

The student said after denying their requests, she was detained for her defiance and handcuffed up against a maintenance truck in senior square during first lunch. At this time, she began to question the necessity of Kelley’s use of force.

“Everyone saw [that] he pinned me up against the car really hard and was pulling my arms back,” the student said.

After the student was escorted to the administration building, Adelante High School youth service officer Dan Miller arrived to assist. Ultimately, Miller drove the student to Auburn’s Juvenile Detention Center where she was booked and released on two unknown charges. She currently waits on an unknown court date. Additionally, the school suspended her for five days.

“Roseville [blew] things out of proportion a lot,” the student said. “It’s stupid to me, for all that to be brought up just because of my opinion and my defiance.”

According to RHS principal David Byrd, there is no exact policy RHS administrators follow when dealing with a defiant student.

“It would be nice if someone sat down and wrote the manual,” Byrd said. “The continuum is kind of internalised. It’s not a chart. You have got to use your judgement.”

He said that administrators struggle with matching discipline with the offense.

“[Administrators need to have] the kind of mentality of not overreacting, but not underreacting too and that is the biggest challenge,” Byrd said.

While Miller also could not comment on the specifics of the incident, he said that in any situation where a student is delaying a police officer of their duties, the student is violating the Penal Code, Section 148 – which prohibits resisting, delaying or otherwise obstructing an officer.

“During an investigation if an officer tells you to do something, then you know you have to obey,” Miller said.

According to criminal defense lawyer David Garland, if a person is expressing themselves in a way that is not well received by the officer or they are using profanity or they are not being respectful, then an officer may threaten an arrest due to a violation of Penal Code, Section 148. He feels, however, that such a vague and broadly interpreted law can be dangerous – especially in investing such authority into individuals and their own interpretation of the code.

“We’re talking about a subjective type of measurement, and I think that it is a catch-all,” Garland said.

According to Roseville Police Department sergeant Rob Baquera, lawful orders that a student must abide by include, but are not limited to, “come with me,” “please sit down,” or “stand over here.”
“Once you get an order by a police officer, you have to obey or comply with the order,” Bosworth said. “I can do whatever I think is best as long as it’s lawful, as long as its ethical and not immoral.”
Steve McKinley, another Sacramento-based lawyer who specializes in malpractice cases, believes the code is broad.

“I don’t think it’s reasonable to handcuff somebody just because they’re told to go to the office and the person says ‘no,’” McKinley said. “It needs to rise above a level of just some kind of verbal exchange. The resource officer needs to have a reasonable belief that the student is a harm to herself or others.”

The United States Education Department, along with the Justice Department, released guidelines in 2014 on school discipline which urges youth resource officers to focus on ensuring “that any school-based law enforcement officers’ roles focus on improving school safety and reducing inappropriate referrals to law enforcement.” The document also urges that they “not become involved in routine school disciplinary matters.”

McKinley said that an officer may become involved in disciplinary matters, if they find the need to use reasonable force to quell a potential threat to students.

“I think it comes down to what a reasonable resource officer would do,” McKinley said.

The student feels that a youth resource officer’s presence is rarely needed during the discipline process.

“If no one was hurt physically, I think that the officer should not be involved,” the student said. “I think the vice principals can handle it on their own, or they should be able to handle it on their own.”

However, Wilson feels that in most cases, youth resource officers are acting on behalf of the administrators at RHS.

“Our officers have always been there to just be a presence,” Wilson said. “I like to have others around to be a support, whether [or not if] others interpret that support as ‘Oh you’re getting someone else against me.’”

Garland recognizes that disciplinary procedures vary from school to school and district to district.

“Schools get funding based on enrollment,” Garland said. “I think there is pressure from some groups to be more relaxed with the enforcements of certain educational codes and other[s] feel like the uniform presence is necessary to send that message that the rules need to be followed.”

Rocklin High School and Whitney High School in the Rocklin Unified School District have entirely abandoned out-of-school suspension for defiance in recent years. According to the California Department of Education, Rocklin High School had a total of 10 “willful defiance” suspensions and Whitney High School had zero during the 2013-14 school year. Roseville High School had 115 during the same year, the highest amount in the Roseville Joint Union High School District.

Roseville High School currently does not have an In-School Suspension program. However, Wilson believes that RHS’ methods are effective in disciplining students.

“If Rocklin has other ideas on how to change that behavior and it works – awesome,” Wilson said. “But if you keep running a red light, at some point you’re going to get arrested and you’re going to go to jail, rather than just getting a ticket.”

Like school districts vary in policy, there is a difference between street laws and rules defined in the Educational Code. Miller gave the example that verbal defiance and cursing may get you suspended on a campus, but not in trouble on the street.

“The rules are different,” Miller said. “They have to be, because they are not geared toward one person, they are geared toward the whole campus. Causes of disturbances aren’t allowed because [students] are all supposed to be here to get educated.”

McKinley agrees that the difference in regulations for a campus are necessary in order to better protect a school’s student body.

“The school has to basically weigh the right to free speech against taking away that right because said speech may put students and faculty at risk,” McKinley said.

The student worries that a campus officer’s presence in disciplinary matters does more harm than good.

“This stuff does suck,” she said. “I just don’t think cops should be on-campus on a day-to-day basis, because it just makes the kids uncomfortable and tense even if we’re not doing anything wrong. They just present themselves as intimidating.”

The student’s mother also worries about her daughter’s upcoming court date and what affect this incident will have on her future.

“When I was at the school, I was really upset,” she said. “I couldn’t even hold my tears seeing her in so much pain, crying and upset. She was shaking. And seeing my daughter in that situation was really breaking my heart.”