These people need to be fired pronto and never allowed near children again:
It’s an unimaginable horror. A 14-year-old girl with special needs allegedly was raped at school after a teacher’s aide persuaded her to act as bait to catch an accused sexual predator, a fellow student.
“It has essentially devastated her life,” attorney Eric Artrip — who represents the girl and her father — said of the alleged January 2010 incident.
The Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Education filed an amicus brief Wednesday supporting her family’s federal lawsuit against the Madison County School Board in Alabama.
***On January 22, 2010, the boy approached a 14-year-old girl with special needs who had already declined his “recent, repeated propositions” for sex, according to the brief.
“She was not physically or mentally handicapped, although she does qualify for special education classes,” Artrip told CNN.
When the girl told Simpson, she encouraged the girl to “meet (the boy) in the bathroom where teachers could be positioned to ‘catch him in the act’ before anything happened,” according to the brief.
The girl initially refused, but then agreed, according to Artrip.
Simpson and the girl went to Dunaway’s office to explain the plan. Dunaway “did not respond with any advice or directive,” according to the brief.
“If this was problematic for the administration it would have been better to express that on the front end instead of the back end,” said attorney McGriff Belser III, who represents Simpson.
The girl left Dunaway’s office, found the boy in the hallway, and “agreed to meet for sex,” according to the brief.
“Something went wrong,” said Artrip.
Instead of meeting in the boys’ bathroom on the special needs students’ corridor, the boy told the girl to meet him in the sixth-grade boys’ bathroom, in another part of the school, according to the brief.
“No teachers were in the bathroom to intervene,” the brief reads.
“She stalled for time. She continually tried to fight him off but ultimately was anally raped by this young man,” Artrip told CNN.
From my years of watching Law and Order: SVU, I can authoritatively state that the tv police were leery about letting Detective Benson act as bait for a rapist. Got it? It was deemed too risky and unbelievable for Law and Order writers. Not for school administrators in Alabama, who, as the article notes, are busy shredding the boy’s disciplinary files.
Baud
You may need to retire the WFT? tag after this one.
Villago Delenda Est
Well, this is Alabama, after all.
One can’t help but wonder about melanin counts in this incident, either.
? Martin
Yeah, I don’t even know where to start with this one…
Anoniminous
Sounds like the parent’s lawyers will make money, the family will make money, the victim’s psychologist will make money, the school’s lawyers will make money, and the school district will pay for it all.
Joel
Jesus Christ. These people need to be fired… into the sun.
muddy
@Anoniminous: Unfortunately the child will be paying for it as well.
WaterGirl
There are no words.
suzanne
@Anoniminous: And the girl will still be dealing with it forever.
I wish/hope there is some sort of criminal charge for those administrators.
beth
From the article:
What the hell do you have to do to get thrown out of school these days?
West of the Cascades
@beth: carry a pocket knife.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@beth: Apparently, in Alabama, a good deal more than 15 violent or sex-related proven incidents of misconduct. It’s appalling, to make an understatement.
Violet
@beth: Carry an aspirin or a nail file.
suzanne
@beth: Good question. The only thing that got kids in my high school kicked out was getting pregnant.
Baud
@beth:
Failing to say “under God” when reciting the pledge.
muddy
@suzanne: Both parents, right?
Anoniminous
@Joel: @suzanne:
I know.
What I’d like to do to the perps wouldn’t pass the Cruel & Unusual Punishment test.
The Other Chuck
The boy had been been in 15 previous incidents, and clearly needs major psychiatric help himself.
But no, they had to “catch him in the act”. So they could what, warn him again and continue to do nothing?
Fair Economist
What exactly were they planning to catch the boy doing? If he already had 15 incidents, catching him propositioning or kissing the girl would hardly have been significant. Seems allowing at least some degree of sexual assault was the actual *plan*.
Josie
@beth: When I was working in public education some fifteen years ago, we were told that, due to the Americans With Disabilities Act, a child could not be expelled from school if his/her misbehavior was due to a disability. In several cases that I remember the disability was emotional, so they could do some really bad stuff without severe repercussions. I don’t know if that applies in this boy’s case, but it is a possibility.
ShadeTail
@West of the Cascades: Or give a classmate with a headache some aspirin.
rikyrah
Lawd have mercy.
These evil azz muthafuckas.
Put them ALL under the jail!
suzanne
@muddy: HAHAHAHAAA, yeah right.
The girls didn’t actually get permanently kicked out. They were sort of “disappeared” and sent to an alternative school as soon as they started looking pregnant and then were allowed back after the baby was born. But they weren’t allowed any choice in the matter, and the classes weren’t academic. It was all “parenting” classes, which were probably useless, and the point was just to keep them from being pregnant in front of their classmates. I don’t know if they still do that.
Tommy
This is a perfect example of where I am so confused. That as an adult I would think I will put a girl in harms way, near a sexual predator. To prove he is such. Now does that happen?
Ruviana
@West of the Cascades: Bite your poptart into a “gun”.
Gene108
How the hell does law enforcement not prosecute this case?
An alleged rape on school grounds should send all of sirens off, but it looks like the only thing adults involved cared about was covering their own ass.
Heads should roll from the superintendent on down.
The fact the adults involved still have jobs is one reason it is easy to demonize public sector workers and by extension teachers unions, though I seriously doubt teachers in Alabama are unionized.
Howard Beale IV
Why wasn’t this kid in juvie in the first place?
scav
@beth: Wear “inappropriate” clothes — ummm still a bias towards impacting girls worse (skirt too short!), but a solid t-shirt opinion effort will get a boy tossed.
The record shredding is a class detail, especially in light of the near-universal insistence on ideal evidence by school district and law enforcement before they’d do anything. All that physical evidence not enough? This seems far beyond he-said she-said territory. Are we back to the needing the video from within the elevator?
The presumption of innocence is one thing, but can brains still be engaged in rule and law enforcement?
PhoenixRising
So the nature of her disability was…?
It sounds like the only way this could get worse would be for the parents of the victim, or the defendants, to reveal that the child victim was in special ed because of a communication or behavioral disorder.
Which would make her disability an aggravating factor in just how utterly fucking incompetent these adults were–to think she could agree to this “plan”, and expect her to manage its potential pitfalls, are even worse than it sounds at first.
Josie
@Gene108: I read the article carefully and at no time was any teacher mentioned. The people responsible were the aide and the administrators. I find that very interesting. I taught for thirty years and I cannot imagine a teacher being involved in such a crazy scheme.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@suzanne: In the late ’70s when I went to HS in Ohio, there was a girl in the honor society who got pregnant. She stayed in school for several months after she was “showing” and talked openly about who it was, how it happened, and later breaking up with boyfriend (before she delivered), etc., etc. Substitute teachers often couldn’t get their heads around her – she was very matter-of-fact about her life. ;-)
She was out at least a few weeks. I can’t swear to it, but I think she graduated on time with us, probably with a great deal of help from her parents.
If teachers, parents, and administrators don’t freak out, finding ways to have the girls stay in school can work. It’s not disruptive, and it helps other students think long and hard about the possible consequences of getting carried away with a HS crush…
I have no idea how things usually work with those situations these days – we don’t have kids.
Cheers,
Scott.
Gene108
@Josie:
It is honestly not a bad thing to not kick emotionally or developmentally challenged kids out of school.
We offer so few other constructive alternatives.
What gets me about this incident dud not need to occur.
Getting the onion off my forty year old selfs belt here, but if a student told a school official she felt threatened by another student, there -in my imagination from being in middle school 25+ years ago – there are a bevy of options, like telling the boy to not do what he’s doing, as he’ll be watched closely for any reports of bad behavior to calling the boys parents or if the parents are colossal fuck ups maybe seeing if state or county social services could be involved in evaluating the boy.
I’d like to think there are things school officials can do to insure a safe school environment short do expelling every trouble maker.
henqiguai
@beth (#9):
Be not-white and, for a boost, not come from money is the usual sure-fire ticket. I think it was in Natick, Massachusetts, recently a high school kid (anglo, I believe) got suspended for calling her teacher a ‘troglodyte’. But I’m told Natick is pushing a real ball-buster no tolerance agenda.
Tommy
@PhoenixRising: I went to so called “special needs” classes a lot. Then to college and a 3.7 GPA. Grad school a 4.0. I had some speech issues. Teachers told me I was “dumb” and I was stupid. Just took me a little longer to catch onto things. Speaking and writing were at the top of the list. But had teachers that didn’t give up on me. Parents that had my back. Made all the difference in the world.
Josie
@Gene108: You are correct and, in my school, a variety of solutions were tried. The problem is that a very few students are so badly damaged that they are a danger to the other students and to the teachers. This boy sounds like a classic example. The administrators involved do not sound as though they put much effort into finding a good solution.
Kay
@Josie:
They changed the law in 2004 and they can expel a student with disabilities, although they have a more elaborate process than a student without a disability and, as you probably know, actual permanent expulsion, denial of a free public education, is an absolute last resort. He was in an alternative school for a while, looks like, and that would have been a necessary step prior to expulsion, here, anyway.
PhoenixRising
@Tommy: Right, which is why using a kid with a disability of that nature as a tethered goat is a whole additional level of stupidity. What kills me is, the principal who okayed this brilliant plan? Moved on to another school.
WaterGirl
@muddy: You’re such a kidder!
Kay
@Gene108:
We have one good facility/program for juvenile sex offenders (which is probably what this person is) and there isn’t enough room. They take the kids who are most likely to finish the program and benefit from it. It’s a triage. They can fail out of it when they act out, and then they’re sent back.
Svensker
What the hell were these adults thinking? And the boy was allowed to return to school? Because the girl victim was “on her own” when she went into the boy’s bathroom?
????????
Gene108
@Josie:
I know no teachers were mentioned. It is just the way things get conflated between what administrators do as they are also a cog in the “public school machine”.
I went to school in North Carolina from the second half of fifth grade through HS.
Ten years ago or so, I was on the old Raleigh N&O forums, before the newspaper killed a rather active forum by stupid design changes. The attack on teachers unions was not a thin, when I was in school but ten years ago right-wingers I’m the forum used to bitch about protections NC teachers received for bad performance from the teacher’s union, knowing full well there are no teacher’s unions in NC.
It is illegal for teachers to unionize, under state law.
But they kept bringing up cases from places with teacher’s unions as proof of how NC teachers were protected by unions. When pushed in thE fact there are no teachers unions, they said unions like the ATF or the NEA have programs to refer non-unionized teachers to lawyers, if they are accused of something or feel they need to complain against the school district.
This was enough to convince right-wingers of the national teacher’s union cabal aimed at destroying America.
In short, any negative action by a public school anywhere can be used,as evidence to damn all public schools everywhere and any school official – whether part of teacher’s union or not – can be made to accuse teacher’s unions everywhere of protecting people who should be fired.
Josie
@Kay: Thanks for the information. I’m glad to know that the law was changed. Expulsion should be a very last resort, but there should be viable alternatives to protect the other students. It’s possible that, in that district, limited funds are available for alternatives.
Josie
@Gene108: So true (and sad)
Tommy
@Gene108: Wow. In my little rural town our schools are the best around. Maybe the best in the state of Illinois. If you have 20+ years teaching you can make $100,000. Nobody complains. Well because our schools are really, really good.
Kay
@Josie:
The administrator is at fault. He/ she should have stopped the aide.
No one really knows what to do with juvenile sex offenders. It takes years for them to get better, although they do better than adults, they re-offend less often than adults if they’re treated. His looking at porn in the alternative school would be considered acting out, and it would get him bounced from our one good program. They just don’t have room to take kids who won’t succeed. There’s another one who needs the spot.
Amir Khalid
I wonder how come the shredding of records by school officials is not itself a criminal act. There’s no mention of prosecuting the people who committed what looks like the destruction of evidence pertinent to a sex crime allegedly committed against a minor.
As for thr vice-principal who suggested that the 14-year-old girl could have consented to sex — I’m amazed that “below the age of consent” is not a thing to her. It is dangerous to have such a person in charge of underage kids.
WereBear
This is sick. Then again, it’s Alabama, which has a Deep South attitude towards anyone who can’t fight their way out of a cage match with a football helmet and a ‘tude.
Josie
@Kay: What happens to the ones who are bounced?
Tommy
@WereBear: I don’t have any children. Just a wonderful niece. If that was said there is me, her grandfather, and her dad (not to mention her mom) might go out and vest a little justice on our own.
WereBear
@Tommy: Yes. There’s plenty of money to put people in jail, but not enough to protect young people from predators their own age.
Tommy
@WereBear: I am about the most laid back non-violent person you can find. My father taught me to turn the other cheek. I’ve been punched once or twice and just walked away. But you sexual assault my family member we are going to have a conversation. Pretty sure that conversation won’t be a lot of fun.
Kay
@Josie:
If the acting out is a violation of probation they go to the juvenile detention center until they graduate high school inside the facility (it’s a prison, it’s the most restrictive facility) and if it isn’t a violation of probation they go back to their homes and the district has to come up with a way to offer the equivalent of a free public education. They can’t go to group homes or foster care, so that’s out. They do online school here,they can’t even go to our alternative school (they’ve already been thru that anyway, probably) and if the juvenile court still has control through one or another charge or mechanism (sometimes they use “dependency” to hang onto them, which isn’t criminal but is fuzzy enough they can stretch it out) they’re ankle-braceleted and they have numerous restrictions. The burden then (really) falls on their parent(s), which has its own set of problems.
karen
Forget about the horrors happening to the girl for now. All that boy’s lawyer has to say is “Entrapment” and that’s all she wrote. I think that the teachers should be tied to an anthill with syrup poured all over them. Though I REALLY don’ believe that the Principal knew nothing about it and wouldn’t be surprised that it was their lawyer who came up with his horrible plan.
Josie
@Kay: I’m guessing that many of these students would not be able to pass the tests that would enable them to actually graduate. Do they then just age out of the system or do they stay indefinitely in their detention or their online study or whatever?
scav
@karen: The ‘agree to have sex’ bit was the really clever bit of their cunning plan. It almost looks as though all they cared about was ticking off each and every of the appropriate boxes to get the troublesome boy moved on out of their area responsibility with no similar care taken vis-a-vis what might happen to the girl — let alone building a legal case of rape or abuse afterward in the legal arena. All the thought seemed to be focused solely on the school policy that “requires allegations of student-on-student misconduct be substantiated.”
Kay
@Josie:
They age out. Generally, the court cuts them loose first and then the district’s duty extends past that (offer GED, “credit recovery”, etc.) but it doesn’t really matter. If they don’t graduate by then they don’t pursue the district’s duty to offer them options past that, and they would have to pursue it, make a demand. By then they are so far removed from what would be a normal school experience it’s unlikely they’re going to be stopping in to see a guidance counselor.
Tommy
@Josie: I don’t know. I just know education saved my life. I was a pretty troubled kid from a family of college educated people, so I know that is a factor. I am pretty sure my parents never thought I could complete a year of college. That I’d have a 3.7 GPA. President of my frat. Homecoming king of a major state college. I know they never thought that would happen. But it did. You have to give children a chance. Maybe most will fail. But a few won’t.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@karen: What school officials did was idiotic and horrific, but it was not entrapment. The rapist wasn’t enticed into doing something he wouldn’t otherwise have done by the school officials.
Kay
@Josie:
I saw one like this (not the rape, but the pattern of offenses that looked minimized, like they were using language to obscure and ass-cover) in a record that was 15 years old the other day, in what is considered a “good” high school – it’s wealthy. I was surprised and thinking “he would have been bounced if this happened now” because there is more awareness of it, but apparently I was wrong.
Josie
@Tommy: I know they have to have extra chances. I am not making a value judgement about who should or should get those chances. I was just asking how the system works as far as where they go when they can’t function in the regular education system. I would imagine it depends on how each state follows the federal guidelines. My main concern is and always has been the safety of all the students. I doubt you threatened anyone’s safety no matter how troubled you were.
Josie
@Kay: I think school officials are nervous about applying strict standard sand being sued. It leads them to avoid major confrontation.
Gene108
@Tommy:
I live in NJ now (lived here longer than I’ve lived anywhere else). People pay through their nose in property taxes to have good school districts*.
They do not complain about their school districts, unless you are in a one of the really rundown towns, like Camden or Newark.
Teachers are unionized and seem to make a decent living, though I am not sure, if they can make 100k.
Anyway, there is a lot of union hate in a North Carolina. I believe NC has the lowest rates of union membership in the country.
* School districts in NJ are usually different per township. On occasion you can see three or four towns maybe having a common high school, but county wide districts are unimaginable.
Tommy
@Josie: I didn’t ever threaten the safty of any student. Not even close.
But you ask a question where I don’t know. If the person might harm other students or can’t function in a public school I don’t know what you do.
Kay
@Josie:
It’s (supposedly) 5% that are a safety issue. I just learned that because the 95% they were suspending under “zero tolerance” were not dangerous and there’s (now) a whole discussion of zero tolerance and how that was too far in the other direction.
Obviously. “safety” is the dividing line, so I’m not suggesting that they should go back to zero tolerance or that this was brought about by that, but that is the line and it seems fairly bright to me. They can probably spend more time on the 5% if they stop pursuing every infraction of the 95%, and treating everything from smoking a cigarette to forging a hall pass like a criminal issue. I know these things are politically motivated, “zero tolerance” certainly was, but you would think at some point they would stop with the wild, ludicrous swings back and forth. Is there no one who ever says that, after years in a state legislature or Congress? They must recognize it. I sure do.
Ruckus
@suzanne:
I’m a bit older than you and the rule was, pregnant and you are out. Not till later, out. We had a girl that no one knew was pregnant until we turned in our cap and gowns to get our real degree. She was in line before me and turned in her cap, grabbed her degree and took off her gown. She was 5-6 months along. The clerk tried to grab back the paper but this girl was having none of it. Walked out with her head held high. Best fuck you without display of the finger or words spoken I’ve ever seen.
PaulW
Yet another Cover Your Ass moment brought to you by People Who Should NEVER Be Put In Charge of Bee-In-A-Jar Duty.
There are not enough hells for the people responsible for this.
EriktheRed
“shredded the boy’s disciplinary files”?!?!?!?!?
Tommy
@suzanne: I don’t think that floats where I live. In the 80s in eight grade I was taught about how to use a condem. The fucntions of a penis or vagina. I have always thought that next to learning to touch type in highschool that was the best class I every took. I learned, was taught about my body. A women’s body. I would not have known any of this because my parents never taught me about sex. I can’t be sure but bet there are not a lot of pregnant women in my highschool is because we have sex ed. Heck you can go to the school doctor and get condemns for free.
Suzanne
@Ruckus: I just looked, and apparently they closed that alternative school in my old district. Good. There’s no reason most pregnant teens can’t go to regular school for most of their pregnancies.
In fact, one of the schools in my district made national news because they caused an uproar when the yearbook staff did a spread in the yearbook about their classmates who are parents. Mesa = assholes.
drkrick
There’s something a little off about this detail:
That poor child can’t catch a break. She’s been surrounded by awful, awful people.