How, exactly, is it "pretty messed up" ? I'd think if your goal was to convince the majority of something, you would look for ways to convince that majority of something. Like perhaps that their own kids could very well be arrested and traumatized in exactly this manner.
Reducing racism gets us more "benefit of the doubt" that might have resolved the situation informally. But it does nothing to change school administrators thinking that turning a 14 year old over to the police on a whim is an appropriate thing to do.
In this specific case I'm just glad this kid is actually innocent so that he can hopefully disassociate the event from himself and see that the school and police are horribly broken. Imagine if the arrest had been "justified" for accidentally bringing a pocket knife or aspirin to school - what kind of lasting psychological damage does that cause?
Reducing racism gets us more "benefit of the doubt" that might have resolved the situation informally. But it does nothing to change school administrators thinking that turning a 14 year old over to the police on a whim is an appropriate thing to do.
In this specific case I'm just glad this kid is actually innocent so that he can hopefully disassociate the event from himself and see that the school and police are horribly broken. Imagine if the arrest had been "justified" for accidentally bringing a pocket knife or aspirin to school - what kind of lasting psychological damage does that cause?