Posted on 05/04/2006 11:52:26 AM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
(AP) EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. A high school student who says she was raped after missing her bus home in 2004 has sued over a district policy that barred her from returning to campus to call for a ride.
The federal lawsuit says the policy is reckless because it effectively strands students in a city with "notorious high crime."
The girl, who missed her school bus because she was meeting with a counselor, was walking to a bus station in May 2004 when she was abducted at gunpoint by four men and driven to a home, where one of the men raped her, according to the lawsuit.
No criminal charges have been filed.
The girl, then a sophomore, has since moved out of the area, family attorney Eric Evans said Wednesday. The lawsuit, filed Friday, seeks at least $75,000 on each of seven counts.
The lawsuit also names Nathaniel Anderson, who was the school district's superintendent at the time, and Chester Bluette, then East St. Louis High's principal.
Bluette declined to comment Wednesday, deferring to the district's spokesman, Doug Clark. Clark said he was unaware of the lawsuit or any policy barring students from re-entering a school.
The lawsuit claims the girl tried to re-enter the school to call for a ride but was told to walk to her home or to a regional transit agency bus stop. Near the bus stop, the men approached her and threatened to shoot her in the head, then forced her into a car, the lawsuit says. After she was raped, she was driven back to the bus stop and pushed out of the car, the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit also names the transit agency, saying it should have safeguarded the bus station because of known criminal activity including public intoxication, drinking and drug use there.
Metro spokeswoman Diane Williams declined to comment, saying the transit agency hadn't seen the lawsuit.
Better plan: sue the people who stopped her from having a gun to protect herself.
East St. Louis?? Ye cats and little kids! There's a city that can give Detroit or Newark a run for the money any day!
I know concealed carry is an answer in some situations -- but not in this situation. It's a terrible story.
BUMP!!
I can't see that it's the transit agency's fault, but the school was exceedingly heartless and reckless. The gov't requires attendance, so they should be responsible for the students until they return home. Telling her to go catch a city bus is simply insane.
Knowing East St. Louis, my guess is that the school's policy is there for the school's own security. But for someone there not to make an exception to the rule so a young girl could get some help is just wrong.
I don't know if the suit against the transit authority will stand. Even if the transit authority did secure its bus stops, in East St. Louis, that's spit in the ocean.
Best question is why so many American cities are violent cesspools. I feel safer in most parts of the Third World than in most American inner cities.
The lawsuit claims the girl tried to re-enter the school to call for a ride but was told to walk to her home or to a regional transit agency bus stop. Near the bus stop, the men approached her and threatened to shoot her in the head, then forced her into a car, the lawsuit says. After she was raped, she was driven back to the bus stop and pushed out of the car, the lawsuit says.
This is a terrible story, who is the idiot that told her the above and are they still employed at the school?
Yes! Much better that she was raped than carry a gun.
I'm not sure why you'd be so flippant. The fact is, it's not a realistic solution to arm high school sophomores.
I'm a supporter of concealed carry; I have a permit myself. In this case, a concealed carry law might have helped, if there had been a good passerby who had been armed, or if the bad guys were merely worried that there could be an armed passerby.
But really, I think we need other solutions for this particular school -- arming 14 and 15 year olds in school isn't going to work.
The attitudes of people like you are one of the reasons that our second amendment rights are going away.
At one time in our history the kids you call sophomores(about 15 years old) were responsible for thier families and the defense of their homes from enemies. All knew how to use firearms. Many high school students today use firearms and are responsible individuals. Having armed students would have stopped columbine in it's tracks with only a few students deaths instead of the many.
It's ironic that the geration that told us we were too stiff with our rules and made heroes of those who broke the rules are now the same people enforcing the most idiotic rules with a zero tolerance = zero intelligence zeal.
You've stated that arming her wasn't a good solution; therefore, you must think her getting raped is a better outcome than arming her. So enlighten me. Which do you think is the better outcome? Her getting raped or her carrying a gun?
I think your comment was particularly bone headed. Ask yourself how many 14 & 15 year olds carried AK-47s (not to mention RPGs) in Viet Nam if you think that's too young to handle a firearm. I have a friend whose track was taken out by a 12-13 yo with an RPG. He wasn't to young.
This is not a fact at all. It's simply your opinion.
She's suing the school because she doesn't know any successful, white lacrosse players.
It's tricky. As a parent, though, my attitude was that I was handing the care and responsibility for the protection of my minor child over to the school, which was in loco parentis, which is about responsibility as well as authority.
These days plenty of public schools abuse the trust that they require be put in them. They fail to protect the children committed to their care, and then punish the same children if they defend themselves against attack. If the school prevented her from getting on the bus and refused her protection, I think the school is probably liable. If that we're my daughter I'd sue the school and the perps.
American won't trust me a 20 year old whose never gotten so much as arrested, with a Miller Light, what makes you think you'd be able to arm 14 year olds.
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