Family says Cobb student shouldn’t have been expelled after being accused of hitting officer

COBB COUNTY, Ga. — A mother believes her biracial son was racially profiled after an alleged incident that happened with a school resource officer, off campus.

Christine Britain’s 17-year-old year son attended North Cobb High School in August 2023 when the alleged incident occurred.

“I want them to let him go to school, get caught up. I want him to graduate,” said Britain.

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“The issues are pretty clear. The district violated the law. They unlawfully expelled my client. He should be back in school and they are restricting him from doing that,” said Attorney Michael Tafelski, Deputy Legal Director for The Southern Poverty Law Center.

Britain said the school resource officer confronted her son off campus after she received a complaint from a student that he was speeding in a school zone.

“When she got out of the car and had her hand on the gun he was scared, he refused to open his window. he knew he had done nothing wrong. They could have called him to the office for anything they needed to talk to him about for her to have her hand on her gun was not it had no reason for that. You are confronting a child supposedly about speeding and you’ve got your hand on your gun to ask him to roll down the window to slow down. He backed up a little bit went around the police car pulled out of the lot went down the street and got a ride to school,” said Britain.

Britain said her son was expelled after school officials claimed that her son hit the officer with the car.

Britain’s attorney appealed the decision which he said eventually led to the reversal of the expulsion from the Georgia State Board of Education.

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“The state board reviewed the record and determined that the district’s policy which controls the jurisdiction for which they can discipline students for off-campus conduct was unlawful. The policy that had been in place was not compliant with state law. They had interpreted and written their policy in a way that was so broad it would give them much more jurisdiction to discipline students for alleged off-campus conduct and what state law allows. The district at a recent school board meeting conceded even before this decision was issued that the policy was unlawful” said Tafelski.

Britain’s son is still unable to go back to school because the school district has appealed the decision of the state board to the superior court.

The Cobb County School District released the following statement regarding the situation:

“Although Federal law doesn’t allow us to talk about student discipline in public, we are confident in the facts of the case. We are unapologetically committed to the safety of all of our staff, including our public safety officers.”

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