VivirLatino

Gang Crackdown = Racial Profiling?

15:30 H | Topics: Children - Georgia - Justice

There has been a nationwide crackdown and round up of alleged gang members in ecent weeks. Specific targets include alleged members of the Salvadorian rooted Mara Salvatrucha. But when does a gang crackdown become discrimination? That is what community members of Cobb County of Metro Atlanta are asking. Latino parents feel that their children are being unfairly targeted because of where they come from. Since the 2000-2001 school year the number of Latino students in the Cobb County school system has just about doubled.

Nestor Suarez a 16 year old at North Cobb High School was suspended for 10 days last September. The reason? He was wearing a belt that read Suarez 13 for his last name and the number he wears when he plays soccer. The school assumed the belt read Sureños 13, a local gang imfamous for its violence and drug activity. Nestor's mother fought back against the school system when her son was suspended for another 10 days in December for writing Lil' Joker X3 on is arm. Luz Elena Suarez won an appeal overturning the second suspension of her son yet the school insists:

He was a poor student, he had had discipline problems in the past, and for some reason or another he has had a flirtation with various gang insignia, The school addressed the issue by disciplining him. We could have done a better job with communicating with the parents and have recommended some ways to do that.

Communication problems seem to be a big part of the issue. Documents containing the school rules are only now beginning to be translated and the student-staff school council has its first people of color representatives for the first time — two blacks and two Latinos.

Via / Atlanta Journal-Constitution