Posted on 12/06/2012 6:06:56 PM PST by grundle
CHICAGO (CBS) – The parents of a 15-year old boy who was allegedly strip-searched at a high school last month have filed a lawsuit against the Chicago Public Schools.
In an exclusive interview with CBS 2 Investigator Pam Zekman, the boy and his outraged parents described what happened.
“He came home crying. So I asked him why he was crying,” said the boy’s father, Anthony Woodman. “And he was like hysterical. He tells me he’s been strip-searched.”
It allegedly happened at Taft High school last month.
His mother, Michelle Woodman said she contacted the CBS2 Investigators “so this doesn’t happen to anyone else. No one should go through what our son went through.”
The student said two security guards, a Chicago police officer and a female assistant principal took him from an room where he was serving an “in school suspension” to a nearby washroom on the second floor.
Asked if the officer or assistant principal said anything, the student said, “They told me they had an anonymous tip. They were looking for drugs.”
He said, while the others watched, one of the security guards put him up against the wall of a bathroom stall so his back was to the guards.
“And then he searched me with my clothes on,” the boy said. “Then he told me to remove my belt. As I undid my belt he pulled my pants and underwear down to my knees.”
After that, “He started grabbing and searching my privates,” the boy said.
He said they did not find any drugs.
Records the Woodmans provided said CPS staff diagnosed their son with an emotional disorder and learning disability. He requires special education services.
Misconduct reports detail behavioral problems leading to numerous suspensions, some contested by his parents.
As for the strip search, his father said “there needs to be consequences for what they did to him.”
Now his parents are suing everyone allegedly involved, and Chicago Public Schools and City of Chicago.
“What we are claiming is that his civil rights were violated when he was strip searched without cause and unreasonably,” said Julie Herrera, the Woodman’s attorney.
“The way it was done was outrageous,” Herrera said. “Having a 15-year-old boy have to have a woman – an older woman – watch him with his pants down, while he is touched by another man. I think is horribly humiliating and embarrassing.”
His mother said it was humiliating for her son, and it has adversely affected him.
“He is very withdrawn. He sleeps with his clothes on. He’s had nightmares,” said Michelle Woodman. “He is very angry. He’s depressed. He is just not the same person.”
The assistant principal who allegedly watched the strip search declined to comment, referring questions to the Chicago Public School’s law department.
A CPS spokeswoman said their policy is that “under no circumstances are strip searches of students allowed on CPS premises.”
The CPS policy manual also prohibits “washroom searches.”
Spokeswomen for both CPS and the Chicago Police Department said they cannot comment on this case until their investigation is complete.
What a Workers Paradise
New millionaires, courtesy of the Chicago Public School system ....
Public school is child abuse.
Those must be the “Chicago values” Rahm was talking about.
burn the freaking school down!!
Sounds like they have learned to “swat” in high school. Anonymous tip to the administration to trigger the “swat”.
Have they been fire or suspended yet? Why not? Union rules?
“CPS staff diagnosed their son with an emotional disorder and learning disability.”
Public schools diagnose these things??
>>>>“CPS staff diagnosed their son with an emotional disorder and learning disability.”
>>Public schools diagnose these things??
No. Public schools cause these things.
if the parents don’t settle down they will have to be tased. If they have a dog, shoot it now as a warning
bump!
I don’t even follow such things today, it would be like watching a slow motion passenger train wreck.
But if it’s like a lot of cities, the officials/teachers involved will be paid either to stay home or to show up at an office where they do nothing, while the investigations slowly grind on twenty times as long as they should ever need to.
Or worsen them. Still it makes them look like double monsters, doing something they were verboten to do already, to a particularly vulnerable kid.
He wasn’t strip searched he was a VICTIM OF SEXUAL MOLESTATION at the hands of the Police and School, they should be in PRISON for LIFE.
Even the TSA doesn’t usually ogle when it gropes....
My niece was handcuffed and put into a cop car and driven to another city to a Mental Institution, and strip searched there, because she said really something stupid at school.
Should we sue?
Not much different than what they do to air travellers a thousand times a day, is it?
Talk to the chaps in charge of suing.
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