Doing an Ed Rooney: New York Principal Charged With Trespass in Showing Up At Home of Two Boys Who Failed To Appear At School
jonathanturley
There is an interesting case out of Chester, New York where Chester Academy Principal Ernest Jackson has been charged with criminal trespass after he followed the lead of the character of Ed Rooney in the movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and went to the house of two kids who did not show up at school. Unlike the movie, he has been charged and suspended.
Jackson is a former lieutenant colonel in the Army and noticed that the two students, 12 and 16, did not show up at school. He proceeded to enter their home (when their mother was out) to try to get them to come to school.
The boys live with their mother — though it was their father who lives in Brooklyn who brought the complaint to the police. Jackson, however, may have gotten permission from another relative and went to the home with a school psychologist.
Of course, Jackson is better than the real Ed Rooney. In 2003, Actor Jeffrey Duncan Jones was arrested for possession of child pornography and employing a 14-year-old boy to pose for pornographic photographs. He pleaded to the second offense and received probation. He was later charged in 2010 in Los Angeles for failing to update his sex offender registration status and pleaded guilty to that offense — receiving 250 hours of community service with three years probation.
Jackson and the school district could be sued in tort for trespass as well as invasion of privacy. It is obviously not a practice that most school lawyers would encourage regardless of the good motivation. Nevertheless, the story indicates that Jackson is very popular and was honestly trying to get kids to come to school.
