Education Cops Rough Up Black Man for Wife’s Student Loan Default

Thanks to Angus Johnston, of Student Activism blog, for finding this one.

Kenneth Wright, who lives in Stockton, California, said that federal agents sent by the Department of Education (DOE) busted down his door without warning Tuesday morning, and left him for more than six hours handcuffed him in the back of a police car. He says it was all because his estranged wife defaulted on her student loans. Acting on orders of the DOE, a SWAT team broke into his home at 6 am and roughed him up before arresting him. (You can see video footage here).

The feds deny that the raid was about a student loan default, but a spokesperson from the department’s Office of the Inspector General said that they “conduct about 30-35 search warrants a year on issues such as bribery, fraud, and embezzlement of federal student aid funds.”  They also said that it was federal agents, not a local SWAT team, who arrested Wright.

Embezzling student aid funds sounds an awful lot like defaulting on them, but with the implication that she was a crook and did it on purpose. Is this the fed’s new way to criminalize poor people who try to go to college? When Wright went to the Stockton police to complain, they showed him a search warrant from the DOE stating that he (or his wife) owed on a student loan.

Regardless of his wife’s actual or perceived crimes, she was not there and he had nothing to do with the matter. Yet he was grabbed by the neck by the SWAT team, handcuffed and dragged out to a police car in his skivvies, all in front of his three children. His small children were detained for 2 hours.

Police Violence Against Puerto Rican Students

Student protests at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) have been continuing for over a year, with the latest flair up occurring in response to a 50% ($800) increase in tuition and attempts to privatize the university. While this might not seem like much compared to the huge fee hikes seen at the University of California, Puerto Rican students are considerably poorer, with two-thirds qualifying for Pell Grants. Student leaders say that 5,000 students were unable to afford the new tuition, while university officials acknowledge that enrollment has declined from 60,000 last semester, to 54,000 this semester.

The UPR administration called in the riot police and SWAT teams, who have occupied the Rio Piedras campus for months, brutally attacking protesting students with clubs and pepper spray. Some students were reportedly beaten and others sexually assaulted by the police. The police presence on campus was the first in 30 years, creating student outrage and heightening tensions. Riot police finally left the Rio Piedras campus on Monday. On Thursday, students took advantage of the “peace” and blocked the social science and humanities buildings with trashcans and chairs. Professors mostly honored the blockade, with only one attempting to enter the building.