Posted on 10/17/2002 4:23:24 AM PDT by fone
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One day after school, she later recalled, the boy came home with a broken belt. Another time, his underpants were on backward and soiled.
On April 21, the grandmother said, she overheard the boy ask his 8-year-old brother to "get the two fifth-graders that are hurting me." When she questioned the boy, he told a horrific story.
Over the previous month, two older classmates - one 10, the other 11 - repeatedly raped him in the school lavatory. They yanked down his pants and, as one boy held him, the other sodomized him, the little boy said.
The boy later told police that the two older boys raped him about 10 times. When he tried to tell a teacher about the attacks, she rebuffed him: "No tattle-tales," she said, according to the police report.
Yesterday, the boy and his mother filed a $2 million lawsuit against the Cleveland Board of Education, accusing school administrators of negligence for failing to provide security adequate to prevent the rapes.
"To think that this sort of thing could go on in a school is unbelievable," said Maple Heights attorney David Pomerantz, who represents the boy and his mother. "It's unconscionable that this happened to him, but it's equally unconscionable that a school would allow it to happen. Obviously, they should be supervising kids better in bathrooms."
Reports of the sexual attacks first came to light on April 22, when the boy's grandmother took him to Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital and a doctor there called police.
Detectives from the police Sex Crimes Unit investigated, and the boy's accused attackers were charged with rape in Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court. They are awaiting trial.
Pomerantz said a case worker from Children and Family Services substantiated the boy's allegations. An agency spokesman, however, said there was no record of the case being investigated or reported.
Schools spokesman Dan Minnich said neither of the boys accused in the case currently attends Cleveland schools. One has been placed at the Berea Children's Home; Minnich didn't know the other's whereabouts. As soon as the allegations were raised, he said, the district launched an internal investigation with Cleveland police, and the boys were removed from Charles Dickens.
Ward 3 City Councilman Zachary Reed, who represents the Mount Pleasant neighborhood around the school, said the allegations are shocking, but shouldn't detract from the area's revitalization.
"Anything can happen in a big-league city," he said. "We need to ensure that nothing like this ever happens in a school here ever again."
I know this neighborhood. Closed up vacant factory buildings, boarded up stores. Houses that haven't seen a coat of paint in 10 or 20 years, next to condemmed ones that have crack addicts living inside.
The "revitalization" he's talking about must be the new super Speedway gas station and oh yes, a brandy new building which houses Health and Family Services.
Words fail me.
I got mugged in the boys bathroom in 7th grade (in jr. high grades 7-9) by two ninth graders. I didn't want to narc, but a few days later I broke down and told my dad. He called the school the following day and at homeroom I was called in to speak to the vice principal. He talked to me for thirty minutes explaining in far too many words the following ideas:
• We don't care who did it (he never asked for a description of the kids).
• We can't patrol the bathrooms.
• There's nothing we can do about it.
• Teachers are busy.
• He's busy.
• If you have to go to the bathroom you can use the nurse's bathroom.
These cowards are pond scum.
FWIW, the TV station adds that the 2 boys have been expelled from school, and are in custody awaiting trial on rape charges. Too young of course to be charged as adults.
No need to insult aquatic life!
But really, how long ago did this happen to you? 70's, 80's, 90's?
I have kids the ages of these in the story and can't fathom them doing anything like that. They don't even know about things like that. What kind of parents do they have?
Then why don't every 10 or 11 year old do this?
Even 10 and 11 year olds know it is wrong to do what they did.
They made a decision to rape a child repeatedly.
The only way I would think these kids are victims is if they also were being raped.
That has yet to come out. I have my doubts.
Now, as an adult wouldn't you like to confront that VP with how he failed to do his most basic job. You probably faired fine after that, and learned to avoid that kind of situation on your own.... survival skills don't often come easily.
Conversly, it is possible that they just watch adults in the household "do it" - along with TV, movies etc.
And don't forget, "sex education" starts in first grade now.
Especially since homosexual acts are now mainstream and normal.
< sarcasm > .
Yeah, I'm the insane intolerant one, these kids were just acting out what is "normal" Set them free
< / sarcasm >
Parent: singular
Or maybe they're just bad seeds. Ten and Eleven year olds are quite capable of knowing that sodomizing five year olds is WRONG. They are capable of making that choice. I am tired of the cult of victimology.
I have a former client who is slated for death by lethal injection in January. He is/was not a victim. The three helpless people he murdered were the victims.
When my child and her friend rode the school bus to kindergarten, a 6 yr boy on the bus (from a very unstable home of course) started saying very sexual things to them - he obviously had seen nude pictures and maybe even porno...he said things no child should ever say, or know about.
The little girls didn't have any idea what he was talking about, but they knew enough that he was scaring them, and saying bad things.
I called the school, spoke to the principal and told the teacher....they were all "working" on "the problem"...this family was a mess - I insisted my child NEVER sit by him on the bus etc.....
I'll never forget the sick feeling I had talking to her about why he said those things....and I taught her some important survival skills to get him to leave them alone.
She always had my complete permission to tell him to Shutup, & kick, hit & scream @ him if he ever touched or threatened her... (thankfully they moved away).
A little extreme......
But..... the two have each other: why don't they just get IN the sack and do one another!
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