"My name is Darrell Ford. I'm 16 years old. Up until last April, I was a student at Lawrence Central High School. I was expelled late April, and after an arduous battle to get my credits so I could in fact become a junior, I went to the Indiana Academy, where I am now."

In the aftermath of the shootings at Columbine High School, school administrators worked to prevent a similar incident. In the process, many students, including Darrell, were expelled or suspended.

A former Y-Press member, Darrell described his ordeal to fellow bureau members. Mary Anne Burden, Lawrence Central assistant principal, declined to comment.

That's because the school legally cannot give information about an individual student's disciplinary record, according to Mary Ellen Hamer, director of school and community relations.

Here is Darrell's story in his own words:

The day after the Columbine shooting, the administration had all the teachers ask all the students if there were any angry people in school who might benefit from counseling. They found like 14 people who supposedly could benefit.

I had a trench coat since the past November. Prior to Columbine, every day I was mocked for owning a trench coat. Everyone thought I was just a big joke, a nerd, because I cared about school and didn't care about fashion.

But (after Columbine) people were saying, "Oh, look, it's Darrell Ford. He owns a trench coat. He must be one of them." Immediately afterward, even though I wasn't wearing it anymore, they decided that I was someone to be kept at a distance and hated.

I was called out of the classroom by a teacher (who) said that the dean wanted to have a few words with me. He asked me about poetry that I had written freshman year. Apparently some students decided it was frightening somehow.

After I got to the office, there . . . was me, the dean and one of the vice principals. They kept asking if my poems meant anything (in the vein of) "Darrell, are you going to commit suicide?"

The assistant superintendent peeked his head in and said that the police were on their way. He sat down with me and told me that students had accused me of making threats and there was an aura of fear that I was somehow generating and that I was going to be expelled and arrested.

I kind of just broke down.

My parents didn't know why I was thrown out of school, like, in writing, until a week later. The most prominent were like, "Darrell's an angry individual, according to two students. Darrell's a Nazi, even though he's black. And Darrell writes scary poetry."

I think they decided to profile me. They heard, "Darrell Ford's got a trench coat, and he looks intimidating."

The administrators didn't look at the things they were trying to expel me on as "How logical is this?" Like because I'm black, I'm obviously not a Nazi. The people who said that I was angry were two high school students who were unqualified to make a psychiatric decision (regarding) how I act.

My parents were great. I think that we did everything right in my family: hired a lawyer, got letters and character evaluations from all kinds of people.

If the system had been fair, (the expulsion) never would have worked.

The violent writings? I don't know. Everybody I know went through a phase where they just didn't like anything, or they acted like they didn't like anything, because their values were changing and it was puberty.

I think the media, in this particular instance, was probably the biggest player in the way society now looks at people. The media just picked up on an eccentricity about these guys, the fact that they wore trench coats, and just went the whole nine yards with it.

I want to say I've taken a carpe diem attitude.

I'd like to think that it's going to make me a better person, if it hasn't already.

But now it's kind of a bad thing, 'cause now when you do your college applications, they say, "Have you ever been suspended, expelled, or had any other disciplinary activity by your school administration?" And now I have to write "yes" and explain that I owned a trench coat and that my school decided that I was worthy of the title of scapegoat.

REPORTER: Glen Hajost, 12.