Another
Zero-Tolerance
Message
Issued
and
Received
4/7/00
An Alabama high school senior was to appear in court this Wednesday to fight her expulsion after police officers said they found a small amount of plant matter in her car that might have been marijuana, the Mobile Register reported. Jenny Hammock was Gulf Shores High School's homecoming queen, newspaper editor and a candidate for class valedictorian, but ran afoul of the school's zero-tolerance drug policy when the local police department's drug dog barked at her car during a sweep of the school parking lot. Hammock was taken out of class and told to open the car for the police. When she asked to call her parents, she was told by police and an assistant principal that the car would be opened "one way or another," according to the Register. Hammock then complied, and the police searched the car, turning up "a small amount of plant fragments" on the passenger side floor mat. The police tested the fragments and concluded that they were "probably marijuana," but declined to test them further and did not press charges. The school suspended Hammock anyway for having "inappropriate material in her car." She was later expelled. Her younger brother, who tried to hug her when he saw her crying in the principal's office the day of the search, was suspended from school for 10 days for disobeying a teacher's order to go straight to class, the Register reported. Hammock's suit against the school district asked for her reinstatement and payment of damages for "the disruption of her education, for the likely detrimental effect of this action on her ability to pursue higher education, and for her loss of status as a result of the wrongful actions of the defendants." The Week Online was not able to confirm details of Wednesday's hearing in time for this week's issue.
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