HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- It's hard to believe. A teaching aide sends a 14-year-old girl to meet a boy for sex in a school bathroom. It's a sting to set up the boy. But the boy switches the location, the staff loses sight of the girl, teachers arrive too late.
The U.S. Department of Justice sided with the girl's attorneys last month, bringing attention to the details in the four-year-old case. Those details sparked petitions and outraged community meetings in Madison County. But the story traveled much further, appearing on CNN and Fox News, in the London Telegraph and the New York Daily News, reaching as far as India Today and The Australian.
Members of Madison County school board have said the story has not been told correctly, that there has been much "misinformation." For example -- "No administrator played any role in this at all," said one attorney for the district.
Law enforcement later explained why they declined to press charges. Another school board attorney told parents: "There are two sides to every lawsuit and most of what you have heard and read about this has presented only one side."
"What's the misinformation?" asked a parent.
"Part of the misinformation is that the student was unsupervised," asserted the attorney. "He was not. He was supervised at all times."
But the girl's attorneys say the board attorneys are the ones omitting parts of the story in regard to the role of school officials. "This is the exact same behavior we have seen all along from the Board: from the day of the rape, until the time they shredded the boy's records, until they appealed..." reads part of their lengthy statement last week.
So here is the story in the words of those who witnessed the events at Sparkman Middle School, just outside Huntsville, on Jan. 22, 2010.
The following is compiled from depositions taken in 2012, from statements written and signed that afternoon in 2010, from emails and from affidavits.
The start
June Simpson, physical education aide, affidavit on June 7, 2012:
Prior to January 22, 2010, there had been ongoing allegations that a male student, (the boy), had been repeatedly propositioning other female students to have sex in the boy's bathroom. The allegations started sometime after the Thanksgiving break in 2009, and I was made aware of it after the Christmas break.
Ronnie Blair, principal, deposition in June 2012:
Q. Did you ever tell one of the teachers or assistant teachers that two students had to be caught in the act for there to be disciplinary action against one or both of them?
A. I don't recall if I've said that or not, but possibly I did simply because it's true, that they're going to have to be caught or they're going to have to admit it themselves. You've got to have evidence, obviously, to discipline someone.
More. Much more...