Guns found in cars of two Clear Creek-Amana students

[cigaretteman]

A K-9 training exercise for local law enforcement at Clear Creek-Amana High School resulted in the arrests of two students Wednesday in Tiffin.

The training exercise led to two separate drug investigations in two cars located in the school parking lot, according to a Johnson County Sheriff's Office release.

While carrying out additional searches, sheriff's deputies found one handgun in each of the cars.

Two students, aged 16 and 17, were arrested and transported to the Linn County Juvenile Detention Center in Cedar Rapids.

Both of the students were charged with carrying weapons on school property, a class D felony, according to the release. One of the students faces a charge of possession of a controlled substance, a serious misdemeanor.

Authorities don't believe the cases are connected.

The release says there is no evidence of an imminent threat to the school community.

https://www.press-citizen.com/story...rs-two-clear-creek-amana-students/2512811001/

 

[Rifler]

World has changed,.. Growing up in the Midwest I routinely carried guns in my vehicle during high school as we would frequently go hunting after classes let out.

 

[Joes Place]

World has changed,.. Growing up in the Midwest I routinely carried guns in my vehicle during high school as we would frequently go hunting after classes let out.

While carrying out additional searches, sheriff's deputies found one handgun in each of the cars.

Duzzn't sound like they were going "hunting"...

 

[Rifler]

While carrying out additional searches, sheriff's deputies found one handgun in each of the cars.

Duzzn't sound like they were going "hunting"...

They probably weren't doing anything,... I used to frequently hunt rabbits with a .22 revolver.

 

[Old_wrestling_fan]

While carrying out additional searches, sheriff's deputies found one handgun in each of the cars.

Duzzn't sound like they were going "hunting"...

I don't have details on these examples, but trapping season in iowa is now open. It is plausible that one or more students had a handgun in their vehicle to dispatch their catches.

I realize that doesn't excuse it, but it may explain it. In other words, there could be a reason for the presence of a handgun that doesn't correlate to gangs or drugs, etc.

Fwiw, I know a guy that checked his traps on the way home from school and kept his pistol in his locker by day. Eventually the principal found out and simply took it from him. Of course this was 40 years ago.

 

[sober_teacher]

World has changed,.. Growing up in the Midwest I routinely carried guns in my vehicle during high school as we would frequently go hunting after classes let out.

Sadly, in the world we live in, I'm not okay with that practice - particularly if they're in plain view.

I hope they don't get in serious trouble just for having the guns on school property (aside from the one who also evidently had drugs in the car), but a school suspension/gun safety courses would be warranted imo.

 

[sober_teacher]

I don't have details on these examples, but trapping season in iowa is now open. It is plausible that one or more students had a handgun in their vehicle to dispatch their catches.

I realize that doesn't excuse it, but it may explain it. In other words, there could be a reason for the presence of a handgun that doesn't correlate to gangs or drugs, etc.

Fwiw, I know a guy that checked his traps on the way home from school and kept his pistol in his locker by day. Eventually the principal found out and simply took it from him. Of course this was 40 years ago.

Yeah, based on what little we know, there's no reason at this point to suspect sinister reasons at play...but they should know better.

 

[SillFontaine]

Just another example of our Constitutional Rights being trampled on.

 

[BigDelHawk]

World has changed,.. Growing up in the Midwest I routinely carried guns in my vehicle during high school as we would frequently go hunting after classes let out.

People in my day had them in racks in the back window of their pickup trucks.

 

[sober_teacher]

Just another example of our Constitutional Rights being trampled on.

Um, the whole thing started as a K-9 exercise. They found drugs in a couple of cars, and found the guns in the process. How is this trampling on their rights?

 

[Rifler]

Sadly, in the world we live in, I'm not okay with that practice - particularly if they're in plain view.

I hope they don't get in serious trouble just for having the guns on school property (aside from the one who also evidently had drugs in the car), but a school suspension/gun safety courses would be warranted imo.

Actually, I agree with this,... Given the world we live in today, guns of any variety cannot be allowed on school property.

 

[SillFontaine]

Um, the whole thing started as a K-9 exercise. They found drugs in a couple of cars, and found the guns in the process. How is this trampling on their rights?

We both know the “exercise” excuse was just a ruse. It is pheasant season and they wanted an excuse to check for guns in the parking lot. This is how the gestapo works.

 

[bdcolt45er]

What are the grounds for searching their cars? Is a dog signaling during a training exercise probable cause?
Mostly just curious it seems a bit invasive to have "training" exercises leading to searches and arrest.

 

[Old_wrestling_fan]

Yeah, based on what little we know, there's no reason at this point to suspect sinister reasons at play...but they should know better.

I agree that they should have known better, just saying that with just the facts known now...there may well be a non-sinister reason.

 

[Old_wrestling_fan]

People in my day had them in wracks in the back window of their pickup trucks.

Same here, probably 5% to 10% of every vehicle in the school parking lot where I went to HS had one, or more, gun(s) in them during hunting season anyway.

And there was never a problem with this either.

 

[ConvenientParking]

What are the grounds for searching their cars? Is a dog signaling during a training exercise probable cause?
Mostly just curious it seems a bit invasive to have "training" exercises leading to searches and arrest.

This is what I'm curious about. If they're on school property, does the school get to consent to a search of their students' vehicles?

 

[sober_teacher]

We both know the “exercise” excuse was just a ruse. It is pheasant season and they wanted an excuse to check for guns in the parking lot. This is how the gestapo works.

Sill, we don't KNOW that the exercise was a ruse. Given that these are cops in rural Iowa, who also probably know a good number of the students at the high school...we're not dealing with the best of the best.

Who knows, you might be right...or you might not. If you can provide actual evidence that this was something more than a simple evidence, I'm all ears. Rural cops don't tend to operate on that level of sophistication. This is Tiffin we're talking about, not the Quad Cities.

 

[sober_teacher]

This is what I'm curious about. If they're on school property, does the school get to consent to a search of their students' vehicles?

I believe the dogs sniffing for dogs represent probable cause, and if anything was in plain view, that also lowers the legal threshold involved.

 

[CarolinaHawkeye]

We both know the “exercise” excuse was just a ruse. It is pheasant season and they wanted an excuse to check for guns in the parking lot. This is how the gestapo works.

You should be all for it then.

 

[BubsFinn]

This does look like a violation of their Fourth Amendment rights. It seems a bit odd that the police would run a K-9 training exercise like this. They were expecting to find exactly what they were looking for, and I be they had a pretty good idea where to find it.
If it was an actual exercise, the students would have been informed and the cops would have had guns and/or drugs in cars that they had put there. This was a genuine search. The K-9 training exercise story is a ruse, no doubt about it.

 

[Rifler]

By the same token,... Back when I was in high school a drug sniffing dog would have gone absolutely nuts in our school parking lot.

 

[CarolinaHawkeye]

They probably weren't doing anything,... I used to frequently hunt rabbits with a .22 revolver.

Revolver? Did you hit anything? We used a .22 rifle, but we had a .22 revolver we took with us when we checked our traps. Raccoons would often get caught in our muskrat traps and they were not easy to drown.

 

[MepoDawg#]

Mediapolis had the same type of searches last week. Didn’t hear of anything that resulted from it. I believe they do this every year.

 

[bdcolt45er]

From the little bit of searching I did. It sounds like dog sniffing is considered a search and requires probable cause and you cannot use dog sniffing to obtain probable cause. There has to be other reasons for suspicion.

 

[sober_teacher]

From the little bit of searching I did. It sounds like dog sniffing is considered a search and requires probable cause and you cannot use dog sniffing to obtain probable cause. There has to be other reasons for suspicion.

Well, these ARE teenagers we're talking about here. Wouldn't totally shock me if they left it in plain sight, it's not like they're criminal masterminds.

Anyone know if CCA has had drug problems in the past, that maybe the cops had more reason than this exercise to conduct a search?

 

[IAHawk2011]

This would be pretty interesting to learn more about to see if there are any First Amendment implications. From my understanding, dogs don’t alert unless they are instructed to search for contraband by their handler. If this was only supposed to be an exercise, without any actual searches conducted, the police shouldn’t be instructing the dogs to search. Dog searches aren’t actually “searches” under the First Amendment, and the standard for conducting searches at school or in a vehicle is less than probable cause anyway - but something tells me that courts would not look favorably upon cops bringing in dogs to search every car in a parking lot without any level of suspicion.

 

[hawkbirch]

This would be pretty interesting to learn more about to see if there are any First Amendment implications. From my understanding, dogs don’t alert unless they are instructed to search for contraband by their handler. If this was only supposed to be an exercise, without any actual searches conducted, the police shouldn’t be instructing the dogs to search. Dog searches aren’t actually “searches” under the First Amendment, and the standard for conducting searches at school or in a vehicle is less than probable cause anyway - but something tells me that courts would not look favorably upon cops bringing in dogs to search every car in a parking lot without any level of suspicion.

why? It's not a search so why can't officers walk drug dogs through a parking lot?

 

[IAHawk2011]

From the little bit of searching I did. It sounds like dog sniffing is considered a search and requires probable cause and you cannot use dog sniffing to obtain probable cause. There has to be other reasons for suspicion.

It’s just the opposite. Dog sniffing is not a search and does not require probable cause. The reason most frequently cited is that the sniffing is not intrusive and does not actually reveal any information about a person or their property, only the presence or absence of contraband.

 

[Pinehawk]

They run dogs through the airport lines and nobody complains about illegal searches.

I'll typically side on protecting people's rights. But, in today's world, if schools have a no guns on premises policy, and want to enforce it, good for them.

 

[IAHawk2011]

why? It's not a search so why can't officers walk drug dogs through a parking lot?

You think police should be able to just roam around in public letting drug dogs sniff at random cars? That doesn’t seem right to me.

 

[millah_22]

We both know the “exercise” excuse was just a ruse. It is pheasant season and they wanted an excuse to check for guns in the parking lot. This is how the gestapo works.

you shooting pheasant with a handgun?

 

[gohawks50]

This does look like a violation of their Fourth Amendment rights. It seems a bit odd that the police would run a K-9 training exercise like this. They were expecting to find exactly what they were looking for, and I be they had a pretty good idea where to find it.
If it was an actual exercise, the students would have been informed and the cops would have had guns and/or drugs in cars that they had put there. This was a genuine search. The K-9 training exercise story is a ruse, no doubt about it.

It may seem a little invasive, but schools are permitted to use drug dogs to sniff out contraband during unannounced, random searches. And even though the Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable search and seizure, the use of drug-sniffing dogs in schools is permitted because students do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the school. Additionally, the courts have acknowledged that schools have a compelling interest in maintaining a drug-free environment.

But as with most Fourth Amendment issues, the legality of these types of drug searches has been largely shaped by the courts and remains in flux. This article explains the legality of using drug-sniffing dogs (or K-9 units) in schools.

In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court (Florida v. Jardines) ruled that the use of a drug-sniffing dog on a homeowner's porch with the intention of investigating the contents of the home was a "search" in the context of the Fourth Amendment. The Court's decision doesn't apply to public places or buildings (public and private) to which the drug dog and its handler are lawfully admitted. In other words, it is not a "search" within the context of the Fourth Amendment when a K-9 unit is invited into the school for a random drug search. While the Supreme Court has not specifically addressed the issue, federal courts have consistently upheld the constitutionality of random, unannounced drug searches in schools.

https://education.findlaw.com/student-rights/using-drug-sniffing-dogs-and-canine-units.html

 

[millah_22]

What are the grounds for searching their cars? Is a dog signaling during a training exercise probable cause?
Mostly just curious it seems a bit invasive to have "training" exercises leading to searches and arrest.

This is what I wonder. Car should be locked. Make the police get a warrant, even if you don't have a handgun in your car.

 

[torbee]

I don't have details on these examples, but trapping season in iowa is now open. It is plausible that one or more students had a handgun in their vehicle to dispatch their catches.

I realize that doesn't excuse it, but it may explain it. In other words, there could be a reason for the presence of a handgun that doesn't correlate to gangs or drugs, etc.

Fwiw, I know a guy that checked his traps on the way home from school and kept his pistol in his locker by day. Eventually the principal found out and simply took it from him. Of course this was 40 years ago.

Except for the part where the cops found drugs.

 

[hawkbirch]

You think police should be able to just roam around in public letting drug dogs sniff at random cars? That doesn’t seem right to me.

yes. It doesn't bother me even a little bit.

 

[whatsup13579er]

We both know the “exercise” excuse was just a ruse. It is pheasant season and they wanted an excuse to check for guns in the parking lot. This is how the gestapo works.

I used to keep my shotgun, along with all of my other hunting gear, in my truck a lot during high school. I wonder if they would have treated that differently than a handgun?

you shooting pheasant with a handgun?

Only if you're a really good shot!

 

[McLovin32]

Linn-Mar used to routinely have drugs dogs taken through our parking lot back when I was in high school.

 

[IAHawk2011]

yes. It doesn't bother me even a little bit.

I have a big problem with that.

 

[hawkbirch]

I have a big problem with that.

Why? Why are the police walking by your car any different than any other person that walks by your car on any given day? Do you believe a person should have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the smell given off by drugs? Does it matter to you if the dog never touches the car until it signals the smell of drugs?

 

[IAHawk2011]

Why? Why are the police walking by your car any different than any other person that walks by your car on any given day? Do you believe a person should have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the smell given off by drugs? Does it matter to you if the dog never touches the car until it signals the smell of drugs?

Because it is reminiscent of a police state. Personally, I don’t think police should be allowed to use drug dogs without some level of suspicion of wrongdoing (not even necessarily of drug related crimes). Allowing them to roam around public sniffing anything and everything is multiple bridges too far for me.