When an emotionally disabled 14 year-old girl was asked to leave her school following a suspension, without notifying the girls parents, she fell prey to repeated rape. Once she was able to escape and found by the police, she was treated as a runaway. Both actions, by her school and the police, are the cause of a personal injury lawsuit, as reported by Michigan Live.
Grand Rapids charter school Hope Academy, school officials and the authorizing body for the school, Ferris University, are named in the suit. The Grand Rapids Police Department is also named as a defendant. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids on July 8.
The parents claim that their daughter was only to be released from school if one of her parents signed her out.
In the suit the student is described as having emotional and educational disabilities. She has a low IQ, functions at about a fourth grade level and has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. There is also a reference that she has had behavioral problems at other schools.
On January 23, 2012, the student was disruptive; prompting her classroom suspension. The mother was called by the teacher to report the suspension, and later, to report that her daughter had apparently walked off the grounds.
According to the lawsuit, when the mother told the teacher that her daughter was not allowed to leave school the teacher gave no explanation. Allegedly an unnamed school worker told the girl that due to her suspension she was not allowed to be on school property.
The suit states that the student entered a "dangerous neighborhood" in which a man offered her a coat and asked her in. Then, according to attorney Joni Fixel, "He gave her a beer then raped her."
Fixel wrote that from there the girl was raped at two other locations and locked in a room. She eventually was able to get a key away from her rapist, once he fell asleep, and make her escape. She hid herself in an empty building until another man found her and contacted a YWCA street counselor.
During this time the parents had contacted the police. Two days had passed before the police reported that their daughter had been found.
During a rape examination a 2-inch long bottle cap was found in her cervix.
The girl, by this time, had grown hysterical. She cried, hit, and later, cut herself and drank soap. She repeatedly complained that she could "hear him in my head." After that, she told an officer that she was afraid the rapist would make good on his threat to return if she had told anyone what had happened. She then became catatonic for three days.
Detective M.M. told her mother on January 30, 2012 that there were problems with the accuracy of her daughter's story: the victim had failed to remember the order of events and mentioned a shooting that had never happened. According to the suit, her mother said that this was because of her daughter's mental disabilities and going without her medication for three days.
The detective said they would only be able to use DNA evidence in her case as their daughter would not make a good witness.
Fixel wrote, "It appeared that it was a foregone conclusion that in the detective's opinion this was a 'bad girl' or runaway, not a young girl who had been kicked out of school and raped by strangers."
Weeks after the rapes the girl's "mental health was spiraling out of control" and she was hospitalized for 4 ½ months.
If you or someone you love has been hurt by the actions of another party you have grounds for a lawsuit. Don't delay and contact a personal injury lawyer for help right away!