Chicago school staff threw bullied 9-year-old boy out in freezing temperature and then reported him missing, claims lawsuit
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: A 9-year-old student was dragged out of the school premises and thrown into the streets while the temperature outside was near-freezing after he complained of being bullied, according to a lawsuit filed this week. The school officials allegedly then allegedly reported the boy missing from school.
The lawsuit filed by the boy's mother, Yvonne Pinkston, accuses teachers at the Fiske Elementary School on Chicago's South Side of ousting her son, who was only identified as K.S. in the suit, from the school building in March when it was 39 degrees Fahrenheit outside, and while he was wearing just a short-sleeved shirt.
The family's lawyer said that the victim tried multiple times to inform the school staff that he was being bullied by his classmates, but no one listened to him.
In the surveillance footage released by the victim's legal team, the school security guard can be seen forcing the boy into an office before marching him through the corridor and out of the school building.
After being ousted from the building, the victim tried to get in by trying all the doors but all of them were locked. The footage showed that adults inside the school saw the kid helplessly looking in from one of the windows but they chose not to interfere.
Running out of options, the kid "sat outside in the cold, with a polo shirt on, for 30 minutes, scared, traumatized and freezing" till the police arrived. What added to the incident was the fact that the neighborhood the kid was thrown in was a dangerous one.
"I feel like everybody in the video that just sat there and just let it happen, nobody stopped it, someone needs to go to jail for it or something," Pinkston said, ABC reported. "That's neglect. It's endangerment. Anything could have happened to my son out there in that neighborhood."
The school later reported the child missing, saying that he had fled after violently attacking teachers.
"CPS (Chicago Public School) officials at Fiske Elementary School lied to police after they shoved and pushed a nine-year-old boy onto the streets of Englewood, one of Chicago’s most violent neighborhoods, with no coat in cold weather during the middle of the school day and claimed he was a 'missing person who was violent'" read a statement from the family's law firm.
The lawsuit, which claimed that the victim was subjected to a hostile educational environment and alleges battery, excessive force and intentional infliction of emotional distress, named the city, the board of education and three school officials as defendants.
The family is demanding a trial by a jury.
The CPS board released the following statement on the incident: "Every CPS student deserves access to a safe and welcoming school environment, and the district takes seriously all allegations of student harm," a spokesperson said. "These allegations are deeply disturbing, and we are fully committed to holding accountable any adult whose actions could have endangered a student."