Philipsburg: --- Several students were in for one of the greatest surprise on Wednesday morning when police and members of the control unit decided to search the school bags of each student as well as the buses for drugs and weapon. Police Spokesman Ricardo Henson in a press release said members of the Zero Tolerance was part of the controls. He said the idea is to reduce the amount fights taking place among the young people attending school mostly in St. Peters and Ebenezer area.
Henson said police intends to intensify their controls because several students were found to be carrying weapons and drugs to school.
These controls were carried out based on information that came into the police. Henson said police received information, which stated, that several students traveling on the buses were carrying weapons with them, however they would not take these weapons on the school premises, instead they would hide them in the immediate school surrounding in case they were needed. The goal of this control was to get hands on these weapons and drugs before they reach the school areas and create a sense of safety for the other students traveling on the buses. During the control, which was carried in the parking lot of the John Cooper-Jose Lake senior ball park, all students traveling on the school-bus were asked to cooperate by disembarking the bus and then opening their schoolbags so the officers could take a look at the contents of these schoolbags.
A total of 56 school buses and the student traveling on these buses were controlled. During these controls three machetes, a flair gun, a knife, six pairs of scissors, three lighters, a pornographic magazine and other items that can be used as weapons were found and confiscated.
One student with initials .M.F.W. who was carrying a back-pack with no school books, was taken to the police station because when a search was done in his back-pack a small plastic-bag containing an amount of marijuana and U.S. $ 90, were found. The parents of this student was called to the police station and informed of the situation. The student in question was reprimanded and the parents were advised to pay better attention to their child. The student was then allowed to leave with his parents. The control was a successful while majority of the students and also the bus drivers were quite contented with this control and gave the impression that these types of controls have been "long awaited.” These controls will continue (un-announced) in the future.
The police department, VKS and Controle Unit would like to commend the students and bus drivers for the great cooperation they have given to controlling officers.