Search More Than Inappropriate Letter Of The Week: From Feb. 6

Recently, as I was watching a local evening news broadcast, I was shocked to hear about a strip search of eighth-grade girls in McMinnville, Ore.

Apparently, a CD player was missing and there were suspicions it had been taken by someone in one particular gym class, if I remember correctly. Some of the girls say police officers took them into the locker room and told them to remove all their clothing. Girls said they were threatened with a full body cavity search if they did not cooperate.

The police department now admits the officers’ actions were “inappropriate” and is sending formal apologies to the girls’ parents.

Inappropriate? More than a little! What did the police hope to accomplish by forcing a bunch of scared girls to strip? As for the body cavity search, just where on or within a girl’s anatomy did they expect to find that CD? Their actions were totally uncalled for.

One of my good friends recently moved here from McMinnville.

Although she is three years removed from eighth grade, I can vividly imagine the rage I would feel if she were subjected to such a humiliating thing.

I am a high school senior, not quite an adult, but even I would know better than to order a strip search of middle schoolers. They are children, not prison inmates, and their rights and privacy are far more important than a missing trinket. If one of those girls was my daughter, I would not accept a simple apology. I would take the police department to court. Erica A. Orto Coeur d’Alene

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