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

[Modern School]

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.

Modern School
http://modeducation.blogspot.com/

[Deep13]

1. Embezzlement sounds more like she took out the loans, but didn't go to school.

Or rather, she didn't use it to pay tuition. I am not suggesting a SWAT team is justified for that.

[saras]

2. Or dropped out or flunked out and didn't then do the exit interview correctly

[Rageneau]

3. We need a 'second amendment' solution to these police state tactics.

Anybody who breaks into anybody's house in the dead of night need to be perforated forthwith, be they burglar, rapist or local law enforcement.

[frylock]

4. it's just a matter of time before someeone gets killed defending their property..

from these stormtroopers. these fuckers didn't need to suit up in order to serve a warrant on a non-violent crime like this.

[Maat]

5. I read the warrant.

There was absolutely NO justification for bashing in a family's door and terrorizing them (asking their attorney to hand over tax records, maybe). Someone needs to be FIRED for this.

[bemildred]

6. Someone needs to be bankrupt for this. nt

[Maat]

7. Well ...

I'm hoping that gentleman will receive a nice settlement to a civil lawsuit!

Heck, they could have just asked his accountant for some papers, or just asked that the records be provided. At most, they could have sent an investigator out. It's not as if there was evidence that would be flushed. The records they sought were records of which there were multiple copies out in the world. This was just b.s.

[bemildred]

8. Maybe he can help pay off the student loan ...

:-)

[Maat]

10. HeeHee.

:)

[classysassy]

9. Police state

tactics in this"Land of the free and home of the brave"Keeping the poor in line while the wealthy plunder the land.

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. Why is it necessary to refer to him as black in your headline?

I'm not understanding why that makes the story any more or less outrageous.