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First Day Of School Ends With Three Teens In Wake County Jail

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Bracey Bryant
RALEIGH, N.C. — The first day of school Thursday ended in handcuffs for three Wake County students.

Millbrook High School officials said Desmond Bracey and Tyrell Bryant, both 16, got into a fight at school and then cursed out a school resource officer.

Bracey, however, said he was just trying to register for class.

"We was going to registration 'cause I didn't have a schedule yet, so (a school official) said, 'I'll give you two choices. Either you go to ISS or you can go downtown,'" Bracey said. "I said, 'I'm not going to neither 'cause I got a place to be right now.' So, he called the officer and the officer just brought it down here."

A third student, Jareice Lennon, was arrested for carrying around a seven-inch knife at Wakefield High School.

School officials said sending disruptive students to jail is part of a tough new policy that aims to keep kids safe.

"What we want to do is create an environment where students come and learn first and foremost," said Michael Evans, a representative of the Wake County Public School System.

WRAL tried to get a response from Bracey's mother about what she thought about the school system's new policy, but she denied that Bracey was her son.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said.

Deputies later confirmed that she was, in fact, Bracey's mother.

Some might call the school system's policy a "zero tolerance" policy, but school officials said they do not like that label because it implies that they do not use discretion on a case-by-case basis.

School officials said that in all three cases Thursday, the students were not only disruptive, but they posed a safety concern as well.

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