New Policy Sought After False Arrest at School

In the wake of the false arrest of a high school student, education and law enforcement officials are grappling with how to better protect students’ rights while maintaining safe campuses.

Police arrived at Camarillo High School early last month and arrested Ashley Anderson, a junior with the same name as a stabbing suspect for whom police were looking.

Ashley, 16, was released shortly after police realized their mistake. But she and her mother went public with the matter several weeks ago. They spoke to school board trustees, urging them to devise a procedure to avoid having another student go through the scary ordeal of being arrested incorrectly.

“I didn’t want this to just stop at Camarillo High School,” Lin Anderson, Ashley’s mother, told trustees. “I hope it goes throughout the district so other minors in other high schools are better protected in their well-being at school, so it’s far less likely that this could ever fall through the cracks again.”

Oxnard Unified School District officials said Thursday that they are trying to establish a policy for the district’s five campuses that would give fair weight to the rights of students and provide enough latitude to allow police officers to do their job.

“It’s a delicate matter, I believe, as far as reaching the correct balance,” said trustee Jean Underwood-Daily. “I mean we have to look at students and staff and the police code.”

Camarillo High School started a new procedure that requires an administrator to fill out a form any time there is a visit by an outside agency, including police, said Principal Terry Tackett.

Sheriff’s officials in Camarillo say that although checking in with an administrator is not required by state law, it is something officers usually do as a courtesy when confronting a student on campus.

In response to Ashley’s false arrest, the department has issued a training bulletin that recommends officers first meet with administrators before apprehending a student, said Sheriff’s Capt. David Tennessen.

Creating rules for administrators to follow when dealing with police questioning or arresting a student has become more critical as school officials prepare to carry out an earlier plan to have law-enforcement agents posted at each of the district’s high schools.

“We want to make sure that students have rights and also parents have rights and police understand that,” said trustee Art Hernandez.

“But we want to make things clear,” he continued, “that we’re not just putting police on campus as an enforcement thing or scare tactic. . . . The police are there to make sure students have a right to safe campuses and a right to no drugs and weapons.”

On Dec. 3, the campus police officer instructed Ashley to step out of her class. Once she was outside, another officer in plainclothes arrested her on suspicion of attempted murder.

“It was a very traumatic thing that happened,” Ashley told the board two weeks ago. By the time the bell rang, “everyone was looking at me like I was some kind of murderer.”

Once they figured out they had the wrong person, they took off her handcuffs, returned her backpack and released her.

Officers later found another person with the same name at a Camarillo address. They arrested the woman for allegedly stabbing a man in Los Angeles.