In Texas, two school employees have been sued after they allegedly verbally abused a boy for being “smelly” and forced him to strip and shower in front of them. The boy was just eight years old and attended Peaster Elementary School. The child’s parents, Amber and Michael Tilley, also filed a police report but no charges were brought against the employees. The lawsuit names Peaster Independent School District and Peaster Elementary School employees Julie West and Debbie Van Rite in federal court in Fort Worth.
The complaint alleges that the boy was taken to the nurse’s office where the employees “began violently washing his body with a washcloth, scrubbing him over a large portion of his body, stuck cotton balls in his ears, all while ridiculing and harassing him about being ‘dirty.'”
If the complaint allegations are true, the treatment of the third grader is truly shocking. Indeed, I cannot imagine adults showering a child without parental notice and consent absent some immediate medical emergency. The case raises a curious line between civil and criminal laws. If a teacher forces a student to strip for pleasure, he is criminally charged. However, if he did so for “bad hygiene” and proceeded to hand wash the child, it is not a crime? I am not necessarily disagreeing with the decision not to charge the employees criminally. I have been critical of the over-criminalization of conduct and intent should be the dominant factor in such an analysis. I simply find it interesting in how such cases are divided between the civil and criminal dockets.
I believe the case probably does belong on the civil side and furthermore I cannot see a viable defense to such an action. A boy in the third grade would be highly traumatized by such an act. As the father of three boys and a girl under 13, I can attest to the intense privacy notions that kick in early with children. You can add feelings of shame and self-loathing that would likely come from such an extreme act. Expert testimony in the case could be devastating for the school district.
It will be interesting to see if the District tries to portray the two employees as “rogue employees” who acted without permission.
Such measures also warp a student’s sense of not just autonomy but authority. The school’s motto “Preparing Today’s Youth for Tomorrow” has a chilling ring if this is what students are being taught about their rights as individual vis-à-vis the state.
Source: Courthouse News
This school is very horrible and have no values. They do a lot of cruel thing to children their and it truly is a horrible school district. their is no reason for for what they do and nobody can tell them otherwise. Myself and other family’s in this school district are facing multiple problems with them all the the time! They need morale’s!!!!!
I hope they go to jail for what they did to this child. If someone did that to my son our daughter i would kick ther f***ing a** for touching my kid. No teacher should lay their hands on any person let alone a child. By the way … what the heck were they doing even watching the kid shower?? The school is also at fault for this kind of treatment for even allowing any teacher to treat a child with such disgust. THIS MAKES ME SICK!!!
As a former student of peaster isd I can say there is no way this happened these are tow of the most respected women in the district and I went there k-12 I was very close to one of these women and it is horrible that these parents are okay with ruining two great people’s lives. Not only is it that I know these these women wouldn’t do this but if you follow the story and look at what all the parents say they are changing the story and even the child is saying it didn’t happen if an 8yr old boy was being forced to do this he would be crying and yelling the layout of the school the secretary, the principal, and vice principal would have heard along with all the teachers and parents that are in and out of the office it’s an open area office they would have stopped it. Also the parents say they kept him out of school for a week then sent him back!!! What parent sends their kid back if they believe this happened! And if you can’t teach your kid to was proper and clean his ears you should be thanking these women for picking up your slack! Just because you are a lousy parent doesn’t mean falsely accuse good women for things you made up!
But us angry alumni and parents of students at peaster know the truth will come out and we know in our hearts what really happened! We are all praying for you Julie and Debbie keep your head up we will get through this!
John, I agree.
Case in Harford County, Maryland: People versus Valerie Carlton.
OK, this mother was made subject of an investigation by Harford County authorities who had no jurisdiction to do the investigation because the county where the subject child lived (with dad) was Anne Arundel County, where the county child abuse authorities WOULD HAVE HAD jurisdiction to investigate allegations of child abuse.
Child abuse allegations were made by the school teacher (again, in Anne Arundel County) TO the wrong county (Dad told her where to call) that she suspected the mother of molesting the child because the child was masturbating in class.
CPS interviews child on video; child says nobody molested her. mom loves her and hugs her, doesn’t abuse her, dad spanks her, but that’s it. She says a cousin “plays with his pee pee” in front of her. A “friend” close to her age (“Bella”) touches her in the shower and she doesn’t like it.
They charge the mom with 28 felonies and hold her on $10 million bail. I am not kidding about this bail. They hold her 13 months and then drop the charges because they can’t get the kid to testify to anything. meanwhile a forensic psychiatrist evaluates the whole thing and comes up saying (a) the kid was not molested; and (b) the kid says she wants to see her mommy more; and (c) someone needs to give her a thorough physical because she may have some vaginal irritation left over from a bout of chicken pox.
When the mom was first arrested, a bunch of news articles showed up that actually PRINTED detailed descriptions of sex between mother and daughter including “oral sex” — used those words — and no retractions were ever printed. Some on-line site called “Screamin Demon” called for the citizenry to burn down the jail with the mother still in it.
The prosecutor, Cassilly, was president of the national prosecutors’ association. He did this all on purpose and all of it to achieve civil goals and to promote a program that the state made money off, sending alleged molesters to the state run mental hospital for six months at a clip so Medicaid would foot the bill.
Cute, expensive, illegal, and it happens every day. This cost Maryland a fortune in tax dollars because the mom was kosher and had to have food shipped in for 13 months in the county jail. Go figure.
@Malisha Of course I know how the system actually works, so I know how they can skip over people they don’t want to prosecute.
But from some of the posts, it looks as though this might be all blown out anyway by the news. I have seen that before too..in fact I have seen news authors print stuff in articles that they KNEW to be lies. (BTW that article actually won an “award”…!! Go figure…)
twattingtitstx:
“Town is pronounced Pee-ster…right next door to Poo-ville. I sh*t you not.”
LOL
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If all 7 stories corroborate each other, what are those stories? What we have so far is pretty gross.
Why is an 8 year old given deodorant? It isn’t needed until puberty.