FBI Partnership Kicks Off at Compton School

Two dozen FBI agents descended on Dickison Elementary School in Compton Tuesday armed with smiles that were as big as their guns.

As part of a new partnership with the school, the agents appointed about two dozen fifth-graders as “junior special agents.” The students’ first assignments include promising to do their homework and stay away from drugs and violence. They are also supposed to help out with chores at home.

A crowd of FBI officials, Compton police brass, school administrators and parents attended the ceremony. The adoption of the school by the FBI’s Los Angeles field office is a first for a Los Angeles County elementary school.

Meeting the federal agents “is a new experience for us,” said Brittany LaFridge, 10.

Brittany, who wants to become a real agent when she grows up, said she already has a pretty good idea of what FBI agents do--although like many of her classmates, she was disappointed at the small size of the agents’ badges.

“It’s like acting,” she said. “You have to act like someone you’re not [in order] to arrest the bad person. Like if there’s a drug problem, you go and act like a drug dealer.”

It’s possible Brittany has come up with this job description based on her own observations. For the last few months, the FBI and the Compton Police Department have been waging an offensive against gangs.

Many of the agents who will be visiting Brittany’s classroom each week have already been working in her neighborhood, said James V. DeSarno Jr., assistant director of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, who founded the school-partnership program.

DeSarno said he decided to send his men and women into the classroom because he wants them to do more for the community than simply arrest troublemakers.

“We want to work with the children . . . to see the FBI as positive,” DeSarno said. “And to let them know that they can achieve their dreams if they work really hard.”

Shirley Parker, who, at her daughter Brandi Jackson’s repeated request, skipped a computer class at nearby Compton Community College to witness the ceremony, said she had mixed feelings about the new partnership.

She said she is delighted the FBI is taking an interest in the school, but sorry that their presence is needed in the community.

“It’s so sad. My daughter will hear gunshots and dive on the floor,” her mother said. “I didn’t teach her that. She learned from other kids.”