Laurence Dollimore
KIDS as young as 12 have been left stunned by a ‘surprise raid’ by a police canine unit at a school in Marbella.
Armed with sniffer dogs, police officers entered classrooms at the Dunas de las Chapas Institute on November 20, it has been revealed.
“Calm down, get up and stand by the wall,” agents allegedly told the secondary school children.
Up to 15 classrooms were reportedly searched in the raid, which only the principal and ‘head of studies’ knew about beforehand.
Some 400 students were allegedly part of the search, which saw dogs sniff for narcotics in backpacks.
According to El Pais, up to five children were found to have drugs on their person.
They have all been expelled for 20 days while investigations continue to determine whether they were selling the narcotics on school grounds.
But parents were left furious after finding out about the search from their kids after school.
“My daughter had no idea what hashish was, now she does,” one mother told El Pais.
The next day, parents received a WhatsApp message from the school.
“The police went to the centre with a canine patrol, as they did last year,” it read,”They come one day without warning.”
“The students who were carrying drugs have been expelled for 20 days, since it has not been clear if it was to sell.”
It added that it was ‘now a police issue with the students and their parents.’
A teacher recalled: “The door opened in the middle of the class. The head of studies entered and, behind, a policeman with a dog.”
“The agent asked that no one touch their phones, that the kids put their hands on the table and be quiet.”
“In class we have a reflection of society,” a school source told El Pais.
“It used to be tobacco, but now the problems are different. There are new challenges and we have to adapt.”
But police have told a different story, refusing to label the search as a ‘raid’, claiming they only searched ‘one or two’ classrooms in a ‘controlled search.’
They said a dog found drugs in the backpack of one minor and that it was a ‘coincidence’.
