LA school board votes to end random searches

The nation's second-largest school district has moved to end random student searches at secondary schools.

The Los Angeles Unified School District board has voted to end daily random metal-detector searches by July 1, 2020. The board asked the superintendent to come up with an alternative safety policy.

Schools still can search students if they suspect rule violations.

Random searches were introduced in the wake of deadly school shootings around the country.

But critics said the "wanding" searches were ineffective, intrusive and although supposedly random, skewed toward blacks and other minorities.

A coalition called Students Not Suspects released a report last year that said weapons were found in only a tiny fraction of the random searches and none of them were guns.

Dozens of speakers at the meeting opposed the searches.

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