The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and the law firm of Traber and Vorhees filed a racial profiling and unlawful search lawsuit Thursday.
The class action law suit is based on an incident that occurred Sept. 24, 2010 at Hoover High in Glendale when 56 Latino students were rounded up during lunch and herded into two classrooms.
The students were searched and questioned about any gang affiliations for an hour. They were then "forced to pose for mock mug shots," according to the ACLU.
The case was brought against the city of Glendale, Los Angeles County, individual officers of the Glendale Police Department, the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles County Probation Department and administrators from Hoover High School.
"The police officers, school officials, and probation officers involved in this roundup targeted these students solely because they are Latino, " said ACLU attorney David Sapp.
Parents of the targeted students met with Glendale Unified School District administrators and supervising officers from the Glendale Police and the Los Angeles Police Department wanting confirmation that the information collected from the students was destroyed.
Those requests from parents were declined.
"They refused to apologize for what they did or guarantee this information would not be used against our children," said Christine Clavesilla, mother of one of the plaintiffs. "We have no choice but to go to court to make sure the information has been destroyed and that this never happens again."
Steven Frasher, spokesman for the Glendale Unified school District denied any racial profiling and defended the action of the groups involved.
"We were pointing out choices kids have," Frasher said.
Frasher siad the incident was an educational tool to dissuade students from being involved with gangs, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The suit asks the court to mandate that all the information collected be destroyed and seeks compensatory and punitive damages.
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