The Sacramento Bee, February 19, 1995
ANGER VOICED AT RALLY FOR ENCINA HIGH STUDENTS, PARENTS AND BACKERS GATHER
AT CAPITOL
By Dorsey Griffith, Bee Staff Writer
   They called it a peace and healing rally, but the gathering of Encina
High School students, parents and their supporters seemed more like a public
exclamation of anger and frustration.
   The Saturday afternoon event came three weeks after students clashed with
sheriff's deputies in the San Juan Unified high school cafeteria. The
lunchtime incident began with a spat between two students and ended with six
students being arrested and nine being sent to the hospital for treatment of
bruises and pepper spray inhalation.
   About 200 people, including gospel singers, Afro-Cuban drummers,
rappers, Encina cheerleaders, basketball players and young dancers
converged on the west steps of the Capitol on Saturday afternoon to eat hot
dogs and hamburgers and to voice support for the students. Many wore
T-shirts that said "Stop Violence, Enough Is Enough."
   The jubilant scene, however, was tainted with the news that just 24
hours earlier, several - some said 13 - students involved in the
cafeteria melee had been suspended for five days, including those with
pending expulsion hearings.
   "The students don't think we have anyone to support us," Student Body
President Ernestine Holmes told the crowd. "We have people thinking we are
thugs. We're here to let people know that's not how everybody is."
   Standing at the podium in her Encina High sweat suit, she gestured
toward the Capitol and added: "We are going places. One day, we'll be
in this building here running things."
   Velma Hall, an Encina parent and the leader of a group that has fought
against what she says is unfair police treatment of young African-Americans,
urged parents to get involved in their children's schools so nothing like
what happened at Encina ever happens again.
   While acknowledging that some students behaved inappropriately during the
incident, Hall said she was outraged at the way in which some students were
suspended on Friday. "We parents have told the kids we don't want them
talking to the police or school officials without a parent or attorney
present," she said. "They called the students into the office Friday and
said any student who would not make a statement would be suspended."
   San Juan spokeswoman Christine Olsen said Saturday she could not
comment on rumored suspensions except to say that all parents are
required to sign the district's behavior code at the beginning of the
school year. "When they are recommended for serious discipline they are
always entitle to a hearing to present their case," she said. "It's kept
totally confidential."
   Others at the rally Saturday demanded greater police accountability.
James Shelby, executive director of the Urban League, urged parents to
participate in selecting school administrators and in school board
elections, and called on school administrators to "take this opportunity to
develop a process and policy for officers coming onto your campus." He added
that sheriff's deputies need sensitivity training. "Kids don't deserve to be
kicked, stomped and beaten as those kids at Encina were," he said.
   Sheriff's Department spokesman John McGinness said the department
stands by its position that its officers acted appropriately when they
used pepper spray and batons against students who they determined had
become a mob. He said department officials, who held their own rally after
the incident to bolster support for their actions, opted not to attend
Saturday's event. "Our statement has been . . . overwhelmingly supported by
the public," he said. "I think it would have been confrontational and
counterproductive."