John Cox of Network World reports:
A middle school honor student who was expelled after authorities searched his cell phone and found evidence of what they claimed were “gang-related activities” now has a lawyer: the American Civil Liberties Union.
The Mississippi ACLU this week filed a federal civil rights lawsuit, arguing that the 2008 cell phone search was illegal and the expulsion wrongful. The lawsuit claims that the gang activities were simply photos showing the student, then-12-year-old Richard Wade, dancing in the bathroom of his own home, and a friend, also at Wade’s home, with a BB gun held across his chest.
According to the ACLU press release, Wade, then a 12-year-old at Southaven Middle School, Southhaven, Miss., had his phone confiscated and then searched by his football coaches, the class principal, and a police sergeant after he read a text message received from his father during football class.
Read more on The Standard.