The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) filed a motion for summary judgment on Thursday in Harrington v. Crawford, a federal lawsuit challenging a vehicle search conducted at a New Hampshire high school.
The motion argues that school administrators and law enforcement lacked the legal justification required to search a student’s vehicle based on information that he legally owned a firearm.
The lawsuit involves Jack Harrington, an 18-year-old high school senior at Hillsboro-Deering High School. According to the court filing, school officials learned of a week-old conversation overheard by an assistant coach, during which Harrington mentioned storing his handgun in the glove box of his truck while at a gas station away from the school campus.
Based on that report, school officials and a school resource officer questioned Harrington and searched his vehicle while it was parked on school grounds. No weapon was found inside the vehicle. The motion states that the firearm was stored at Harrington’s home at the time of the search.
The Second Amendment Foundation argues that the search violated Harrington’s constitutional rights, asserting that legal gun ownership does not constitute reasonable suspicion or probable cause for a search by school authorities or law enforcement.
“Entirely lawful and constitutionally protected conduct cannot be the grounds for a search,” SAF Senior Director of Legal Operations Bill Sack said. “School officials, especially when accompanied by law enforcement as was the case here, need at minimum reasonable suspicion to search a student’s vehicle. Here, those officials learning that our client was a gun owner gave them that suspicion. They are mistaken. If that were the case, student gun owners all over the country could be subject to repeated and endless harassment.”
The motion filed by the plaintiffs notes that defendants in the case acknowledged they did not consider Harrington a threat to school safety, did not believe he had a weapon on his person during the questioning, and noted he had no prior disciplinary record.
“Defendants relied upon a week-old, stale report of a single comment made by Jack and overheard by an assistant coach…relating to Jack’s storage of his handgun in the glove box of his truck while at a gas station nowhere near campus – indisputably legal and constitutionally protected conduct,” the motion states. “At no point during the interrogation, the search, or at any time since, have defendants brought forth a single shred of evidence of unlawful conduct by Jack.”
SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb stated that the organization brought the motion forward to address what it characterizes as a clear overreach by school administrators and the present resource officer.
“District officials – and even a school resource officer who should know better – took it upon themselves to violate the constitutional rights of a peaceable, adult, firearm owner for no other reason than they learned of his status as a gun owner,” Gottlieb said. “This young man was interrogated and coerced into allowing school officials to search his vehicle because he chooses to exercise his rights as a private citizen. Law enforcement and school officials are required to understand the law and to follow it, and in this case, it appears they failed at both.”
The motion asks the court to rule in favor of the plaintiff without proceeding to a full trial, arguing that the material facts of the search are undisputed and show a violation of constitutional protections.
READ: Global Consumer Sentiment Records Twelfth Week Of Recovery Prior To Ceasefire Collapse
Please make a small donation to the Tampa Free Press to help sustain independent journalism. Your contribution enables us to continue delivering high-quality, local, and national news coverage.
Sign up: Subscribe to our free newsletter for a curated selection of top stories delivered straight to your inbox.
