By Camille Juton
Staff Writer
The El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach and Redondo Beach Police departments joined together to conduct a truancy sweep of high school students on May 24.
Three times a year South Bay police forces band together to look for students from local high schools that are ditching class between 8:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.
“We drive in undercover cars looking for kids who leave school without permission,” Mira Costa School Resource Officer John Loy said. “Students ditch school, and it is our duty to regulate it.”
According to Loy, 10 students are caught during truancy sweeps on average.
“I don’t think that the truancy sweep stops kids from ditching, but it is a way to show them that there are negative effects to bad decisions,” Loy said.
Police forces caught senior Laurel Shimamaura when she left campus to pick up her homework. The police handcuffed her and gave her a Study Zone.
“Handcuffing me was unnecessary, and they made the situation seem like a bigger deal than it actually was,” Shimamaura said.
A student who has been caught must go through the Student Attendance Review Board process with the Manhattan Beach Unified School District. The parents are notified and the student is given a punishment.
“When I picked up my daughter at the detention facility, I was shocked,” Laurel’s father Hiroki Shimamaura said. “They handcuffed her just because she was waiting outside school.”
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