Tag: failure to protect

FL. Jacksonville teacher suspended for not intervening in kindergarten fight

A northeast Florida kindergarten teacher named Rita Baci has been suspended for allegedly making multiple video recordings of a child beating up other children without intervening.

But some believe it’s the education system itself that makes it difficult for teachers to intervene in school fights.

On three separate occasions, the teacher used her smartphone to make a video of a male student hurting others in the class. According to the Florida Times-Union, the videos show the boy smacking another boy “about his face and body several times, kicking another student who was attempting to hide under a table, and punching and slapping a third student.” The kindergarten teacher did not intervene in any of these school fights.

WA. Parents of boy repeatedly bullied at school for years sue for 1.2 million

A seventh grader at Enumclaw’s Thunder Mountain Middle School, Andrew had grown withdrawn, listless and depressed. Once a model student, he’d lost interest in school activities by March 2012.

Andrew had been beaten up, again. A group of students who had been tormenting him attacked him at the social, bloodying his nose and bending his dental work while recording the abuse on a camera phone.

He and his parents claim the bullying continued unabated for two years. The March 2012 incident was so bad the family reported the attack to Enumclaw police, but the harassment continued.

Chis and Andrew’s mother Tonya claim their son received nothing but lip service from school officials despite more than 30 complaints of abuse. Tonya said Enumclaw Superintendent Mike Nelson suggested she homeschool Andrew – by her account, Nelson said the boy’s grades were good enough that doing so wouldn’t hurt his future – or move him to an alternative school.

On Wednesday, they took the first step toward filing a lawsuit against the school, which they intend to pursue vigorously. Attorney Yvonne Ward said her clients are seeking $1.2 million in damages from the school district and are prepared to take their claims to a King County jury as soon as possible.

Chief among those claims is the family’s contention that Andrew’s abusers were allowed to bully him freely while he was left undefended. The district did not return a request for comment Wednesday afternoon.

A log provided by the school shows Andrew reported abuse nearly twice a month for two years. The incidents ranged from name calling to physical violence, which left Andrew afraid of school.

It was only Andrew’s departure for high school that stopped the bullying.

Now a sophomore at Enumclaw High School, Andrew said he’s slowly regaining his trust in school. After a stern letter from Ward, the high school administrators pledged to see that Andrew was treated fairly; he said they’ve been good to their word so far.

Two years of abuse shook Andrew’s foundation.

Andrew’s parents want Thunder Mountain Middle School to change.

“There’s a culture at this middle school that doesn’t protect the victim, and almost seems to blame the victim,” Chris said. “I want to see a change in that school, a change in the culture of that school.”

For other parents whose children are being bullied, Tonya’s advice was simple.

“Fight for your kids.”

Mexico: Teacher suspended for student death for failure to protect

A teacher and the assistant principal at a junior high school where a student was thrown against a wall by four classmates and later died of his injuries have been suspended pending an investigation, education authorities in a northern Mexico border state said.

The Tamaulipas education department said in a statement that the 12-year-old boy died Tuesday after being hospitalized for almost a week.

The ninth grade student’s Spanish teacher and the assistant principal have been suspended at the Eleazar Gomez Junior High School in the capital city of Ciudad Victoria and students have been offered counseling, state Education Secretary Diodoro Guerra said.

The boy’s parents said witnesses described how four of his classmates grabbed him by each extremity and threw him against a classroom wall several times last week.

His father, Javier Mendez, said the teacher didn’t stop the assault even though his son pleaded with her to intervene.

“I want justice done against the teacher who didn’t act. She had my son’s life in her hands,” Mendez told Milenio Television on Wednesday.

The federal Education Department said in a statement that it had requested a complete report from Tamaulipas authorities on the boy’s death.

TN. Multimillion dollar suit filed against school for failure to protect, bullying, assault and battery

The court-appointed guardian of a 16-year-old Washburn School student has filed a $30 million dollar lawsuit against more than a dozen parties.

The case, filed last month by the victim’s court-appointed guardian, Katherine Parks, said the then 15-year-old was brutally attacked by four classmates, leaving her with injuries to the face and head, it said.

Parties in the suit named include director of schools Edwin Jarnagin, the Grainger County Board of Education, and all the named attackers’ families.

The suit says one of the four classmates confronted the victim, identified as “SL,” hit her head on a metal pole several times, and then the other three girls kicked and punched the victim several times.

“While this beating was going on, S.L. remembers seeing a teacher walk by. The teacher took no action to stop the assault on S.L. or to help her in any way,” the suit said.

After the victim’s foster mother picked the girl up to take her to a hospital, she spotted an ambulance and stopped for help. The suit added “The workers at the substation examined S.L., determined her condition to be one of life and death…”

The severity of the injuries is reason why, according to lawyers from the plaintiff at the Vogel Law Firm, so much and so many people were named in the suit.

“We send out kids to school not to fail to be protected — to go and to learn and have a positive experience,” said associate attorney Rosie Brown. “If teachers and administrators and other school supervisors are turning a blind eye to situations that could lead to an incident so serious as this, then there’s something that needs to be done about that.”

Student attacked on a school bus. Driver may face charges for failure to protect.

For the last two decades, HWC has been arguing that school  administrators and school bus drivers have an ethical and legal duty to  protect every single child on the bus as if they were in the school building. We assert it is the administrator’s duty is to create and supervise a  reasonable effort to observe and identify problems and problem  children before they are allowed on the bus.  Some of these bus incidents  arise spontaneously and without warning.  However, when children telegraph their  intentions (and they almost always do) the adults in charge need to be proactive.

If a child, or group of children in this case, is likely to present  a risk to safety on the bus, either the child’s parents should be responsible  for providing the trip home or the school must provide enough monitors on the  bus to ensure everyone’s security.

A driver should never be put in the position  of driving a bus on our streets with children that the administrators and  faculty know are likely to present a threat to safety, whether it is a special  education student in emotional turmoil or young criminals.

The bus driver’s main priority is to operate the bus safely.  In order of  priorities for the driver: 1) make sure the bus is pulled over and parked  safely, 2) communicate the problem to the police so they can provide backup and  3) intervene when necessary to protect the safety of children on the bus,  provided they have the physical capability and the training to do so.  As you  can see on this video, the driver was faced with multiple assailants.  HWC has a  strategy for clearing the narrow center isle, using a force level that is  appropriate and lawful given the severity of this beating.

Three students are accused of beating a younger student aboard a Pinellas County school bus.

A student exiting the school bus was viciously attacked by three other classmates. The bus driver called for help but did not intervene to protect the student to stop the beating. The student had his arm broken and the driver is being investigated.


WFLA-TV News Channel 8

The youths have already been charged.

Cited reason for the attack? The victim did not want to buy drugs from the attackers and instead turned them into the school. An investigation revealed one of the suspects had tried to sell drugs to the victim in a school bathroom. The victim notified officials at the school. Later that day, the suspects and victim rode the same school bus home.

Officials said the bus driver from Lealman Intermediate School called for help when three students “ganged up” on a 13-year-old student, kicking and punching the victim. Officials said the victim tried to crawl under a seat on the bus as the suspects punched and kicked the victim for roughly a minute, police said.

The victim suffered a fractured arm. Police say one of the suspects, Joshua Reddin took the victim’s money after the beating.

All three teens are charged with aggravated battery. Reddin is also charged with unarmed robbery. All three have been released from police custody.

Oregon. Lincoln County School District sued $2.9 million for failing to protect students against 6-year-old

A Federal lawsuit filed on behalf of five Lincoln County elementary students accuses local school officials of failing to report and prevent “sexual harassment and assault” by a 6-year-old boy who they said touched their genitals, hit them in the crotch and exposed himself.

The lawsuit says “sexual touching” occurred in classrooms and on the playground. It contends that school officials knew about the behavior and did not notify the plaintiffs’ parents about the ongoing sexual molestation.

The suit also alleges a pattern of repeated sexual abuse, physical abuse, and bullying behavior that was repeatedly brought to the attention of the school.  That the school did nothing to protect these kids from further assault, stop the ongoing abusive behavior or even notify the parents.

The lawsuit further alleges that the school employees did not comply with mandatory reporting requirements. There is no mention in the lawsuit whether the 6 year old boy was a victim of sexual abuse or assault himself.

In fact, the school only acknowledged the 6-year-old boy’s behavior after one the parents heard about it and confrnted the school district.

The suit is alleging emotional and economic damages, totaling about $2.9 million plus attorney and court costs.

Student’s family wins $300K settlement in suit against TN school for failing to protect

J.G. was a seventh grader diagnosed with Aspergers and Anxiety Disorder and was having a hard time adjusting to seventh grade, had weak social language skills  and would have “meltdowns”. The school also had written documentation that J.G. would need assistance with “social negotiation” and that J.G. was teased and bullied.”

Based on the diagnoses, several interventions were instituted, including allowing J.G. to leave the classroom when he felt stressed, preferential seating and a card system to give him a way of signaling to a teacher that he was being bullied or felt stressed.

In May, 2006, J.G.’s teacher left the room for 5 minutes and during that time there was a physical altercation where student W.K. hit J.G. in the eye with a book and J.G. sustained serious injuries to his left eye that necessitated four surgeries and left him legally blind in that eye.

J.G.’s parents sued the school for negligence and failure to protect.

The trial court held and an appeals court confirmed that the school breached its duty to safeguard students while at school from “reasonably foreseeable dangerous conditions including the dangerous acts of fellow students.” First, the school was negligent with respect to the teacher leaving the class unattended. The school principal testified that, in light of J.G.’s condition and his complaints about being bullying, he should not have been left in the room without a teacher present.  Second, the court found the school negligent for failing to disseminate information regarding the student as the teacher that left the room was not notified of J.G.’s diagnoses and was not aware that he was the subject of bullying and teasing. See generally Small v. Shelby Cnty. Sch., No. W2007-00045-COA-R3-CV, 2008 WL 360925 (Tenn. Ct. App. Feb. 12, 2008) (asthmatic student injured in physical education class; jury found school system liable for failing to disseminate information about student’s medical problems to teachers).

The Court then upheld the $300,000 verdict handed down by the trial court, holding that given what the school knew about J.G.’s developmental limitations, including his inability to react appropriately to social cues, his tendency to have meltdowns, and that he was the target of bullying and ridicule, the school board should have foreseen that he could be injured by another student when left unsupervised.

NYC. Another NYC School to be sued for failing to protect student. 14 year-old blinded in school fight will sue for 16 million.

14-year-old Brooklyn teen Kardin Ulysse was left blind in one eye after a brutal assault by bullies. The encounter involved the thugs shouting anti-gay slurs in the cafeteria of Roy H. Mann Junior High School in Bergen Beach.

In response to the attack, Pierre, the boy’s father said:

Pierre said:

“The doctor says he needs a transplant … For me to send him to school with two eyes and come back with one eye is really absurd.”

The eighth grader was double teamed by a pair of seventh graders. The pair called him names such as a “f***ing fa**ot”, a “transvestite” and “gay.”

One schoolmate pinned the victim’s arms, while the other was clear to send punches on the defenseless Kardin’s face, head and neck. Kardin was able to break away, but the fight continued in the cafeteria until school safety officers and aides finally intervened.

The boy’s family has retained lawyer Sanford Rubenstein, who will file a notice Tuesday to sue the city for $16 million for failing to properly supervise the students.

D.C. Parents of student shot by a Juvenile in the District’s custody sue DYRS for $20 million

The family of a Catholic University student who was gunned down in Petworth is suing the District for $20 million in a wrongful-death suit.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in federal court in D.C., alleges that the accused shooter was a juvenile criminal offender who was in the custody of the city’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services at the time of the shooting.

The lawsuit claims the District acted with indifference and negligence in the supervision of the teenager, resulting in the August 2010 killing of 31-year-old Neil Godleski.

A spokesman for the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services on Thursday did not return a phone message for comment.

According to police at the time, Godleski was gunned down in Sherman Circle shortly after midnight while biking home from the restaurant where he worked as a waiter.

Police said 17-year-old Eric D. Foreman fired multiple shots at the cyclist, then stood over the college student and fired two more shots. Foreman raked through Godleski’s pockets, stole $60 and fled. The motive was robbery, police said.

Foreman was a criminal juvenile offender who was supposed to be under the supervision and detention of DYRS, the lawsuit states. Foreman had been sent to live in the Dupree House, a group home at 5619 Colorado Avenue NW.

The suit said Foreman was known to be a gang member and had a propensity for violence, and cited a report that one in five of all homicides in the District involved a youth in the custody of DYRS, either as a suspect or a victim.

The lawsuit comes at a time when Mayor Vince Gray is trying to get a handle on youth violence and the city’s juvenile justice system.

Five of the six people who were shot on Halloween were teenagers, and the 17-year-old boy who was shot in the head in Georgetown that night was also under the supervision of DYRS, sources have told The Washington Examiner.

The teenager accused of shooting a cabbie over 75 cents last week in Northeast had escaped from a group home at the time of the slaying, sources said. He was later found to have hid at the home of his aunt, a DYRS counselor.

And the teen who was arrested last week in a fatal stabbing of another teen in a Petworth playground also had escaped custody of the youth agency.

Since changing it’s Juvenile policies, DYRS has had a series of missteps leading to multiple fatalities.

Teen who fled from BWI is latests to escape from city juvenile authorities

At least 9 wards of DC now charged with murder

53 youths in killings were D.C. wards on ‘at risk’ list

NY. School hit with $11 million ruling for failure to protect student from attacks

A rural school district in Upstate New York has been hit with an $11.4 million judgment for failing to protect a high school student who was beaten by three schoolmates minutes after she asked an assistant principal for protection. The Genesee County jury found the administrator had acted with reckless disregard for the student’s safety. The judgment in Shelby v. LeRoy Central School District an example of tort litigation losses nationally by school districts.

Crystal Shelby, suffered brain injuries from a May 1995 beating by three girls in the hallway of Le Roy High School, located about 25 miles from Rochester, N.Y.

“The lessons here for school districts are: ‘Don’t disregard a student who asks for help,’ and ‘You have to be effective in your discipline,’ ” said plaintiff’s counsel Terry D. Smith of Smith, Keller, Miner & O’Shea of Buffalo, N.Y. Translation. It is not enough to have some discipline policy in place. The policy has to be effective in maintaining a safe environment conducive to learning.

“The girls who assaulted Crystal were three hard cases who had been disciplined and suspended time and again.” According to attorneys on both sides, the night before the assault Shelby had an argument with the three girls, who explicitly threatened to attack her the following day in school. The following morning Shelby told assistant principal Neil O’Brien that she had been threatened but he took no action and told the girl to proceed to her homeroom.

During the liability phase of the bifurcated trial the jury found O’Brien had acted with reckless disregard for Shelby’s safety. The three girls attacked Shelby in the hallway, beating her head with a padlock and slamming her headfirst into a wall. She suffers hydrocephalus, a condition known in lay terms as water on the brain and characterized by dangerous pooling of fluid in the cranium. She has endured seven hospital stays and six brain surgeries to treat the condition, according to Brian Mahoney, who represented Shelby along with Smith. Shelby has two shunts in her cranium to drain fluid. She suffers persistent cognitive difficulties.