Reply to Damascus Brooming Sexual Assault Lawsuit Against MCPS Going to Trial

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/05/13/damascus-brooming-lawsuit-locker-room/

[QUOTE]What happened inside the locker room several years ago is well-known. Four junior varsity football players at Damascus High School in Maryland set upon their teammates, pinning three of them down and jabbing a broomstick handle into their buttocks.

But should school officials have known the attacks were likely? It’s a question a federal jury will be allowed to weigh after a judge ruled that key claims in a lawsuit against the Montgomery County school system can move forward. The judge’s decision this month is a boost to the victims and their families who have long asserted the attacks were preventable.

“Plaintiffs have put forward evidence that a reasonable jury could conclude that reckless or callous indifference occurred here,” U.S. District Judge Peter Messitte said from the bench.

Attorneys for the families say that school officials knew of at least three, earlier sexual assaults inside Montgomery County high school locker rooms, including an alleged 2017 incident among Damascus football players involving a broomstick that has emerged as perhaps the most critical and contentious part of the litigation. The families also say school officials, partly motivated to protect the powerhouse football program, allowed a player to remain on the JV squad despite his history of violence and sexual harassment, and that they left the JV locker room unchecked for an hour every day between the end of classes and the start of practice.

A football locker room, a broomstick and a sex assault case roil a school

Messitte did not set a trial date, but indicated that if the sides could not reach a settlement, the case could go before jurors for three weeks in February at the federal courthouse in Greenbelt. Potential damages could top $1 million, according to attorneys in the case.[/QUOTE]

The article is long and has LOTS of good reporting and details worth checking out. MCPS has a toxic culture of folding its hands and DOING NOTHING in the face of kids who misbehave badly. And they also do a lot of box checking, when dealing with kids requires a level of thoroughness and insistence to get to the bottom of the issue.

Between this lawsuit and the one the Marguder Mom Karen Thomas has against MCPS for the shooting of her son at school in the bathroom last year, MCPS's insurer is going to be fed up and raise their premium, which I'm sure will be passed on to us as taxpayers....[/quote]

The county is self insured. Taxpayers pay.[/quote]

WOW. Did that not know that. Well that sucks even more....[/quote]

Tell the victims that, these incidents are a direct result of voters and what they let happen in the schools, in this County.  You should all pay.[/quote]

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