DENVER — Students and staff demanded answers at a school board meeting nearly a month after officers went classroom by classroom at a largely minority-group high school in Denver and asked teenagers for their IDs as they looked for a suspect in a shooting.
Several students spoke at the Thursday meeting, saying the April 24 search made them feel targeted, disrespected and unsafe.
“We should not be treated like animals that have just run away from a shelter. We should be treated like humans, like students,” said Mary Jimenez, a 17-year-old junior at Rise Up Community School. “Because we are students of color and students of low income, we get harassed and pushed around and we’re expected not to fight back.
“We need our respect and we need answers,” she said to loud applause.
Denver police have begun an internal investigation, Denver Department of Public Safety Executive Director Troy Riggs said.
“What happened should not have happened,” Denver Public Schools Superintendent Tom Boasberg said.
The search occurred at the small alternative charter school for students ages 16 through 20 who have dropped out of traditional schools or who are at risk of leaving school. Principal Lucas Ketzer said officers looked for the juvenile suspect over his objections, which he said caused students to feel unsafe and intimidated.
Police pushed a teacher away from her classroom after she said she wouldn’t allow them to enter without a warrant and pulled a gun on a teacher who went out a back door looking for students in an alley where they sometimes hang out, he said.
Ketzer said he initially searched for the student at school April 24 and told police he was not there. School district security then intervened, allowing the officers to go inside.