Spartans Will Conduct a Black Lives Matter Workshop at Cass Tech High School
When: Friday, April 8
Michael Brown. Sandra Bland. Freddie Gray. Tamir Rice. All victims of violence in street confrontations with police. How should young adults conduct themselves in police stops? Do they have legal rights? How do they stay alive?
High school students will learn answers to these questions at the Black Lives Matter Day on Friday, April 8 at Cass Tech High School in Detroit. Law students from Michigan State University College of Law will offer workshops to teach high school students their constitutional rights and how best to handle themselves in police confrontations.
“Students see the questionable deaths of Eric Gardner and Sandra Bland, and wonder how police are not held responsible? There is a definite anxiety between minority young adults and law enforcement,” said Cass Tech Senior English Instructor and newspaper advisor Erika Jones. “The 11th and 12 graders are beginning to drive. They need to know their rights and how to handle themselves if they get stopped by police.”
Black Lives Matter Day will begin at 9 a.m. on April 8 at Cass Tech with a panel discussion on police stops and constitutional rights. The forum will be an informative dialogue between students and legal professionals. Wayne County Judge Kenneth King, Prosecutor Kim Miles, criminal defense attorney Cliff Woodard, Detroit Police Officer Curtis Schell and Black Lives Matter activist Angela Waters Austin will participate.
Panelists and Cass Tech students will analyze dashcam video of the controversial police stop of Sandra Bland, a black woman motorist who was arrested in a routine traffic stop and ultimately died in a Texas jail. Training specialist for the Michigan Department of Law Enforcement Standards, Daniel Rosa, will engage students with a demonstration on situational responses that can lead to the escalation of violence between police and citizens. Rosa, a veteran law enforcement officer was present during the Los Angeles riots following the Rodney King trial and has a unique perspective to educate young adults.
Following lunch, MSU Law students will branch out into individual classes to teach hundreds of high school students in smaller workshops during the 5th, 6th and 7th hour classes at Cass Tech. Cass Tech students will discuss constitutional rights, participate in role play scenarios and analyze past police stops.
The press is invited to attend the Black Lives Matter panel discussion and individual workshops.
“There are too many young people winding up hurt or dead in what otherwise should be routine police stops. We want students to ask real questions and get real answers to the problems they face when confronting police,” said MSU law student Gabrielle Boyer, coordinator of Black Lives Matter Day.
To conduct the workshops, MSU law students completed several hours of legal training in criminal searches, seizures, arrests, and Miranda Rights. Cass Tech students submitted more than 250 questions about police stops, which has been a burning issue among black youth since the highly publicized death of Michael Brown who was shot by police in Ferguson Missouri in August of 2014.
Black Lives Matter Day is a collaboration of the MSU First Amendment Law Clinic, MSU Street Law Program, the MSU Law Diversity Services Office, Discoverlaw.org, the Cass Tech NAACP Chapter, the Future Project at Cass Tech, the CT Visionary Newspaper Staff, administrators at Cass Tech and the Communications Department of Detroit Public Schools.