In a lawsuit there is often the expectation that money will be awarded. Rare is the suit that is only brought to facilitate change. Here, we do not have detail. We do not know how much (if any) money is sought by the parents. This can speak to motive which, if the parents make statements, can be revealed through analysis. One parent may sue to pay for the therapy the victimized child may go through to deal with trauma; while another seeks punitive action against the school, while yet another sees a golden retirement. There is compensation, for example, for loss of income on one hand, and there is the spirit of larceny on the other: seeking money one's own hands have not earned; and there is everything in the middle.
We have few quotes to work with, yet even here, we have information to go with.
Indiana boy suffered 'horrific sexual abuse' from classmates, lawsuit alleges
INDIANAPOLIS – The parents of a central Indiana boy claim their son was subjected to "horrific sexual abuse" by three second-grade classmates at a school run by Ball State University.
The lawsuit filed last week alleges the students' teacher and officials at Burris Laboratory School in Muncie failed to act to halt the alleged abuse. It also contends the four 8-year-old boys had "unfettered access" to pornographic videos they downloaded on school computers and iPads.
The more detail within a lawsuit, the more there is at stake. The choice of words "unfettered access" is different than alleging that four 8 year old boys had "access" to pornographic videos downloaded (more than just viewed, but downloaded).
Is it wise to use the word "unfettered"? Will this then become what is argued over: the difference between the ability to access pornography and "unfettered" ability to access?
Next, note the school's response. We would like to know:
Q. Did four 8 year olds have access to pornography? This is bad enough, and if so, what, if any, action was taken?
Q. Did four 8 year olds have "unfettered" access to pornography? This suggests ongoing, continual access, without restraint.
To "fetter" would be to have some restraints in place:
Q. Did the school have an anti-pornography software installed as most businesses and schools seem to, today?
Q. If not, how often was pornography accessed to bring it to the level of "unfettered" access? This one single word may end up costing the attorney who wrote it in the suit. It may change the argument in court from access to pornography, including a child being able to circumvent any restrictions, to having unlimited access.
Did the attorney who filed the suit really want to make this the argument? Regardless of intent, he did by using a word that may be intended to persuade and inflame rather than report. It also will impact the school's response:
Ball State spokesman Tony Proudfoot says the school will "vigorously defend these unwarranted allegations."
Please note that the spokesman calls the allegations "unwarranted" but not untrue or false.
He says Ball State learned in December 2011 of alleged inappropriate behavior among four second-graders at the school. Proudfoot says the suit's allegations "bear no resemblance to the evidence" in the case
This is another interesting statement. He does not say the evidence disproves, or does not match, or that the evidences proves otherwise, instead he uses the negative to describe:
"bears no resemblance."
It may not resemble the allegation, but this tells us that there is something that must be uncovered.
Something exists, but it just doesn't "bear" resemblance to the allegations. This tells us that there is something to compare.
I think, from just these few words, that something nefarious did take place in the classroom.
It may not be what is alleged, and it may be that the parents are seeking to retire on the tax payer's dime, and the suit thrown out, but...
The language tells me that this did not arise from a vacuum.
14 comments:
off topic
The parents of missing Baby Lisa have revealed her room remains virtually untouched a year after she disappeared without trace.
As family life goes on at their home in North Lister in Kansas City, Missouri, Deborah Bradley and Jeremy Irwin are still holding out hope their child is alive.
The one-year-old vanished from her crib, exactly a year ago today.
'They've got Lisa's room intact,' the Irwin family attorney John Picerno told ABCNews.com.
'They still try to honor her. They still believe that she is alive. They buy clothes that will fit her when she comes home
'They try to buy gifts for her to celebrate the various holidays as the holidays pass.
Lisa disappeared on the night of October 3 after her father left to work a night shift and her mother spent an evening drinking on the porch of their Kansas City home.
In November, Rasleen Raim, the mother of her brother Blake has has filed an 'Emergency Motion for Temporary Custody' and 'Motion to Modify Child Custody/Visitation' in the Circuit Court of Clay County, Liberty, Missouri.
Blake is the son of Jeremy Irwin, Lisa's dad, and Raim, who lost custody of him in 2008.
Blake and his five-year-old brother, Michael, were in bed when their baby sister vanished.
They were interviewed by child counselors last week as the search to find their baby sister continues.
Mrs Raim has told reporters she feared her son had been taken when she first heard reports that Lisa had gone missing.
In a letter sent to the court by her lawyers she says she is concerned about her Blake's 'safety, comfort and peace of mind'.
The statement from The Savory Law Firm read: 'Rasleen misses her son and has always, and will forever, love him.'
Lisa's father Michael Irwin has told investigators he came home around 4am October 4 after a rare late shift at work and discovered Lisa was gone.
He said a window was ajar, all the lights were on, the front door was unlocked and three cellphones were missing.
Mother Deborah Bradley admits she spent the previous evening sitting outside with a neighbor, smoking cigarettes and getting drunk on boxed wine.
She says she last checked on the baby around 6.30pm.
She claims police have accused her of being involved in the child's disappearance, and that she failed a polygraph test.
In tearful statements to the media, given shortly after Lisa's disappearance Bradley repeatedly insisted she doesn't know what happened to her child.
Blake and his five-year-old brother Michael were interviewed for two hours by an FBI expert who specialises in working with children.
The family's lawyer John Picerno said they 'seemed to be in good spirits' afterwards when he took them out to eat.
He said he didn't grill them about what happened during the interview and urged their parents not to either
The interview was taped, but the family's attorneys will only be able to see it if charges are filed.
Picerno said an FBI agent told him in an email that the interview went 'fine' and that there were 'no new developments.'
'They are cute little boys,' Picerno said. 'I first met them this week. The first thing they said when I sat down with them at their kitchen table was, the older one said, 'Are you going to help us find Lisa?'
Police say they have gone back over nearly 100 previously closed leads, re-interviewed connected parties and re-evaluated forensic evidence.
'It's been tough for a long time,' Captain Steve Young told ABCNews.com. 'It's still an open case and we still seek and need quality tips and leads.'
Despite the differences between police and parents, hope remains on both sides.
'We'll follow up on every tip and we hope that one of those tips leads to that conclusion,' Young said.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2212245/Parents-missing-Baby-Lisa-leave-room-untouched-year-vanished-crib.html#ixzz28H2R4H8B
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"You can look in the media. I think it's pretty obvious where they're at," Picerno said. "They've said she's not a suspect so I'm not going to quibble over the words. But I think if you look back over what's been in the media and what they've said over the last year, what they think, I think, is pretty obvious. It's obvious to me."
Bradley faced public scrutiny in the days following Lisa's disappearance due to her changing timeline of the events of the night and the revelation that she had been drinking the night Lisa disappeared.
"Pretty much the only thing that I'm guilty of is drinking too much. And even when she comes back, that's something I have to live with, that I might have heard something and been able to stop them," a tearful Bradley told Dr. Phil McGraw in February.
She said the issues have been blown out of proportion and that she is neither an alcoholic nor a neglectful parent.
"It is literally impossible to remember every single detail and say it exactly the same every single time and there are so many negative people or hateful people that have picked it all apart," Bradley said. "If I had done something, I'd be in jail right now."
Baby Lisa's Parents Move Watch Video
Baby Lisa: Mystery Phone Call Reignites Case Watch Video
Missing Baby Lisa Irwin's First Birthday Watch Video
The family is planning a vigil for Wednesday evening with family, friends and supporters.
"We want to thank everyone for continuing to help look for Lisa and for the overwhelming support," the parents said in a statement this week, according to ABC News' Kansas City affiliate KMBC. "Every day without her is hard and there is no such thing as normalcy anymore. Every day we wake up hoping it will be the day she comes home to us. Until that day happens our family will continue to be incomplete without her."
At least one KCPD detective and one FBI agent work on the case every day, police said. They have investigated over 1,600 tips and said they are looking into about a dozen tips at present. Five hundred of the tips have been reported sightings across the U.S. and internationally, police said. Each reported sighting has been investigated, but none were determined to be Lisa.
Police say they have gone back over nearly 100 previously closed leads, re-interviewed connected parties and re-evaluated forensic evidence.
"It's been tough for a long time," Capt. Steve Young told ABCNews.com. "It's still an open case and we still seek and need quality tips and leads."
Despite the differences between police and parents, hope remains on both sides.
"We'll follow up on every tip and we hope that one of those tips leads to that conclusion," Young said.
"We all hope that she's out there," Picerno said. "Until someone finds her and she's not alive, we all hope and believe that she's out there somewhere. We just hope whoever took her is taking care of her."
There is a $100,000 reward for any information leading to Lisa.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/missing-baby-lisas-parent-buy-clothes-gifts-year/story?id=17375065&page=2#.UGwuP6rhc0E
'They've got Lisa's room intact,' the Irwin family attorney John Picerno told ABCNews.com.
'They still try to honor her.
They still believe that she is alive.
They buy clothes that will fit her when she comes home
'They try to buy gifts for her to celebrate the various holidays as the holidays pass.They don't honor her they only try to.
They don't buy her gifts they only try to.
I would be interested to know what size clothes they buy and if they still have those clothes or returned them. Will her wardrobe be stuffed full of clothes all new or will it be empt like their story?
Trying doesn't mean they succeeded.
They could knock pornography off the Internet anytime they wanted. They do not want to.
They do not want too because it is big business, with big in-house fees collected through pay pal charges, credit card companies and banks. In that much Peter Townsend was correct.
Shouldn't 8-yr olds be in the third grade?
Q. Did the school have an anti-pornography software installed as most businesses and schools seem to, today?
there was a case i think in new york where some kids had google searched the word hair and porn popped up. the teacher was imprisoned despite the principle testifying that the school had refused to pay for the blocking software services when the renewal bill came. imo it was not the substitute teacher's fault, yet she was thrown in prison. imo wrongfully.
This particular school system has had problems with this sort of thing before. Muncie is not a place to send your kids to school.
http://www.fox59.com/news/wxin-christopher-smith-former-muncie-principal-found-guilty-for-failing-to-report-rape-20120323,0,705097.column
http://www.fox59.com/news/wxin-muncie-woman-molesting-baby-police-muncie-woman-arrested-for-molesting-baby-girl-20111202,0,2238956.column
off topic (Hobnob)..
It's good to know that the black garbage bags are still pasted/taped over the window of "missing" baby Lisa. As a memorial and as a sign of deep respect, of course.
Hobnob, I read this story yesterday and those statements stood out to me too. Granted it's their attorney saying it and not them but it still makes you wonder. The part about them buying her clothes that will fit her when she comes home makes no sense. They don't know when she'll be home so how can they know what size to buy her. Maybe worry about the wardrobe after she comes home, it's not a big deal right now. Then the whole trying to honor and buy her gifts. What does he mean they try? They try to but just can't do it? Very weak statements made by the attorney he's just saying these things to make it appear that her parents are missing her, in my opinion. Otherwise he'd be saying more about love and not focusing so much on physical nonsense.
From http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2nd-grader-sexually-abused-classmates-suit-article-1.1173779
"The suit, which identifies the child and his parents as Junior, John and Jane Doe, alleges that the four 8-year-old boys involved had 'unfettered access' to the Internet at school and downloaded pornographic videos on the school's computers and iPads."
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Unfettered access: no one was supervising what they accessed? They were not blocked from any sites? They were not blocked from downloading off the internet?
It isn't clear how many times this happened, if it was once or an ongoing thing.
I have to wonder how many adults per children they have in this setting if this was going on without a teacher catching it right away.
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"The suit claims that the teacher allowed her students to take long, unsupervised trips to the bathroom — just one of the places where the parents say their son was 'forced to give and receive oral sex and engage in inappropriate touching with other second-grade boys.'"
"The alleged sex abuse also took place in the boys' classroom and the school library, the suit claims."
"When students told the teacher that boys in the class were 'doing things to other boys’ private parts,' the teacher reportedly told them to stop 'tattling,' the suit alleges."
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The parents use the word "forced"; the student who tattled did not make it clear whether anyone was being forced against their will.
Again, sounds like an adult who was overtaxed and not really aware of what was going on, perhaps thought the tattler was just trying to provoke her or get the others into trouble.
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"Proudfoot confirmed that Ball State and local police launched an investigation in 2011 when they learned of allegations "of inappropriate behavior among four elementary students at Burris and reported the matter to the Indiana Department of Child Services."
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"Inappropriate behavior among" the boys would suggest they all engaged in this behavior together willingly. Many eight year olds today have the computer skills to find porn on the internet, especially if it is something going on at home. If they were unsupervised long enough, I could easily see one or more wanting to show the others what they have seen online.
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"Proudfoot did not describe the behavior but said that the claims in the lawsuit 'bear no resemblance to the evidence or results of the investigations of the university or those of the agencies to which it was reported.'"
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Ball state and local police launched an investigation when they learned of the allegations but claim the results bore no resemblance to the allegations now being made. Yet he did not describe what their investigation did reveal.
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"Jason Delk, an attorney for the child's parents, maintains that the boy suffered emotional and physical trauma."
"'He's absolutely a victim,' Delk told The Associated Press. 'I don't know that he's the main victim, but he's certainly a victim of the sexual abuse that was going on at Burris.'"
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"Absolutely" a victim. He doesn't know that he is "the main victim" (out of 4 children) but he's "certainly" "a" victim.
"The" sexual abuse "that was going on"
"The" victim would presuppose that one or more students were forcing him against his will. "A" victim could mean that all of the students were "victims" in the sense that they were exposed to things they shouldn't see because of a lack of supervision.
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"Delk said that the parents filed the suit 'as a measure of last resort' after failing to come to 'an understanding' with Ball State officials."
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What was the understanding they had wanted to come to? This is the key. Did they demand better supervision? Installation of software to block porn sites? Counseling for the boys? An investigation of the boy who instigated it? A monetary reward? Or ?
"Pretty much the only thing that I'm guilty of is drinking too much."
If it's "pretty much", what else is she guilty of?
Who is "they"? State, country, world authorities? Who has jurisdiction over the internet?
In order to outlaw it, "they" would have to define it. Whose definition will they go by. Where will they set the limits. Human beings will never agree.
Then, as soon as they begin, there will be a great push to include things that are simply unwanted ways of thinking/ political correctness.
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