[fabsroman]

This is one of those tough cases. Not on the legal aspect, but on the moral aspect. A kid had his watch stolen, an expensive watch, and now we are complaining because children were searched.

You guys are the same ones that complain about criminals being let off on some technicality, or about people suing all the time over stupid stuff. Getting an attorney involved in this is kind of crazy unless the detention and search were utterly insane.

Now, as far as the law is concerned, generally the school has the right to search the locker and everything in it. If the person was an actual police officer and he had probable cause to detain the kids, you are SOL about the detaining of the children and the searching of the children. The big question is going to be whether or not he had probable cause. Now, if he is a security guard, that would be a different matter altogether.

At the end of the day, justice was served and the watch was returned to the kid that owned it. I know I would have wanted the same thing done if somebody had stolen my watch. However, I have no idea how long the kids were detained and how bad the search was. Were they detained for hours and given a cavity search, or were they detained for 30 minutes and given a pat down to see if they had the watch?

I hate the searches that they do at the airports, but once I am on that plane I am pretty glad they do them. If your son loses something expensive, you will probably hope that the police exert the same effort in trying to recover it. I always tend to look at it from both sides, not just one.

I will be interested to hear what your attorney has to say about it.