Posted on 03/22/2017 3:05:30 PM PDT by markomalley
ROCKVILLE, Md. – Hundreds of outraged parents pressed Montgomery County, Maryland school officials for answers during a recent meeting at Rockville High School, where police allege two illegal immigrant students brutally raped a 14-year-old girl in a bathroom last week.
Media was banned from the school property Tuesday evening as parents, grandparents and other community members packed the meeting to express outrage by the tragedy, which school officials characterized as an “event.”
Virtually everyone who streamed out of the meeting said school officials did little to alleviate their concerns about safety, and repeatedly dodged questions about the dangers of illegal immigrants in the school.
“I thought it was just a lot of political speak,” parent Rob Sisco told The Washington Post. “I felt they really weren’t addressing the issue, and the crime that happened.”
“I’m not satisfied,” local resident Elizabeth Plum told WTOP. “They were asked specifically whether they would admit students with criminal records and the answer is ‘yes.’ And would they be monitored? The answer is well, if they had a probation officer, maybe, or if they had an ankle bracelet, maybe.
“So in other words, the school apparently doesn’t take any responsibility, even when they know the student has a criminal record,” she said.
Another local resident, Jack Posobiec, posted a video of the meeting on Twitter, as well as video interviews with those who attended.
“They tried to stick to the one hour. So they talked for 50 minutes about how great the school district is, how great the school is … for 50 minutes,” an unidentified grandmother of a student at the school said in one video. “They did go over time, but all the people standing in line (to speak) never got to their question. We didn’t even get in line because the time was so short.
“Basically, it was a lot of talk about how secure they are, what a great school they are, they get to know all the kids, they got a peace officer there, and a team, and a camera in every hallway,” she continued.
“The question we didn’t get to ask was, ‘Well, then how did this happen?’ That bathroom, at the end of that hallway, downstairs, where these two men walked this child to locks from the inside. And someone asked, ‘What’s going on with that?’ And they said, ‘Well, we’re changing the bathroom, we’re going to change that lock’ because they went inside and locked it.”
“And people asked, ‘Well, how can an illegal alien with an apparent criminal record be in school? And how do you admit people if you don’t know their background?’ And they said, ‘Well we just take whatever papers they come with.’ For example, they take an 18-year-old and put him in ninth grade. They don’t really know if he’s 10. They don’t really know anything,” the grandmother said.
The victim told police Jose O. Montano, a 17-year-old ninth grader from El Salvador, and Henry E. Sanchez-Milian, an 18-year-old ninth grader from Guatemala, shoved her into a bathroom at the school around 9 a.m. last Thursday and forced her into a stall where they took turns holding her down and raping her, vaginally, anally and orally, Fox News reports.
The girl told police she knew Montano, who eventually left the bathroom when he heard a door, while Sanchez allegedly held his hand over the girl’s mouth. The two then put Sanchez’s jacket over her head and walked her out of the bathroom. The girl said she went into the girl’s bathroom and as she exited she saw the two coming back so she fled and alerted school staff, according to court records.
Both Sanchez and Montano were arrested on one count of first-degree rape and two counts of first-degree sex offense, and now face a potential sentence of life in prison, The Washington Post reports.
Both are charged as adults in the case, though police released little information about Montano because he’s 17. Authorities also released a mugshot of Sanchez, but not Montano.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security data shows Sanchez was stopped by Border Patrol in Rio Grande, Texas in August 2016 and officers determined he entered the country illegally from Mexico. Sanchez was ordered to appear before an immigration judge but had not yet received a hearing date.
Montano came from El Salvador eight months ago, the Post reports.
Montgomery County school officials have worked to separate the case from the raging immigration debate in the U.S.
“This horrible incident shouldn’t change anyone’s minds that those schools are safe for our students,” Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Jack Smith said, according to NBC Washington.
“While some would try to make this into a question and an issue of immigration, what comes down here is that we serve every student that walks in our door,” he said. “We are a public school system.”
School officials told those at the Thursday meeting the school utilizes 105 cameras and a five-person security team, but admitted the cameras are used primarily to review crimes after the fact, Plum said.
“Obviously, that doesn’t help the child who was raped,” she said.
Across the street from the school, numerous protestors toted signs that read “Safety Not Sanctuary!” and “Keep Marylanders Safe” as they denounced the brutal rape as a direct result of the country’s liberal immigration policies.
Sam Fenati, a county resident whose family emigrated legally from Italy, placed the blame for the rape squarely on the federal government.
“This litter girl’s rape is the fruition of liberal policy in this country,” he said.
Fenati, of course, wasn’t the only person to connect the dots.
Montgomery County officials vowed to call for the deportation of Montano and Sanchez, if convicted, despite their proud tradition of not cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.
“We want to get bad eggs out of our county, basically, but we don’t want our county police enforcing immigration law, but in this case I think everybody can agree that if these folks are convicted that we don’t want them in our county,” said Patrick Lacefield, spokesman for county executive Isiah Leggett.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer also weighed in on the rape case Tuesday, pointing out that it illustrates exactly why President Trump is focusing on fixing the country’s illegal immigration problems.
“Let’s remember the human side of this, that this is a tragic event that no child, no person, no parent should ever have to deal with,” Spicer said. “School should be a place where a parent puts their child on a bus or drops them off or sees them off and knows that they’re safe.”
“People are victims of these crimes and they’re victims of the economic piece of it; there’s a national security peg, but immigration pays its toll on our people if it’s not done legally and this is another example,” he said.
She should’ve bit his thing off.
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That is kind of like a little sausage.
Can’t be eating pork, you know.
The Sicilian in me would KILL anyone who did this to one of my nieces.
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AMEN...
Not Sicilian but- Had it been MY family -since the rapes happened Friday and this meeting on Tues, I would have already been in jail as I would be tracking down the individual(s) that allowed this travisty to even think of happening and am sure that in quick time I would have assaulted someone.
Of course, would be hitting the lottery were they to lock me up with these two animals.
Why do tax-payer public schools allow illegals to attend?
I “lived” there for 30+ years...before escaping. It is a LIB -dominated hell hole. It is truly hopeless there. Escape while you still can. It is the county of the infamous idiot sheriff moose from moozlum sniper years.
How do we know these guys are really 17 and 18 as not 19 and 20?
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