School Employee Attacks Student, 2 Employees Arrested

August 7, 2014 by

School Employee Attacks Student

An employee of Berks County Schools in Pennsylvania allegedly body-slammed a 17-year old student.  A teacher then allegedly lied to cover up the incident.  The incident occurred at the Paramount Academy, a school for students with therapeutic needs.

The allegations are as follows: The assaulter is a “behavioral specialist” that was working in the teacher’s room.  Students were being loud, and the specialist told the class that the next student to say something would be “body-slammed” through the door.  A short time later, the student, who was not loud earlier, asked if he could sharpen his pencil.  After the teacher gave him permission  he stood up, and the specialist grabbed him by the shirt and rammed him against the door several times.  He then pushed the student through the door, then rammed him headfirst into the wall, then pinned him to the floor.

The behavioral specialist is 6’4″, and weighs 280lbs, while the student is 5’8″ and weighs 162lbs.

The student suffered scratches and bruises to his upper torso.

The teacher was arrested for falsifying information during the investigation.

Everyone is presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law.

 

Analysis of School Employee Attacks

Schools hire employees to care for students.  In doing so, they should do their due diligence to screen potential employees to try to find signs that such behavior has occurred in their past.  Past behavior is a good predictor of future behavior.  Yet despite background checks and interviews, sometimes schools hire people who are not suitable for working with children, especially children with special needs.  This can lead to incidents such as this.

When such an incident occurs, it is in the school’s best interest to be open and cooperate with law enforcement or child protective services investigations. The teacher alluded to interviewers that she lied because because she was told by her “higher ups” to clean up the incident.  If true, then this is unfortunate and the problem runs up the chain of command.

Don’t be that kind of school.

Filed Under: Ask Safe Havens, Safe Havens Blog, Stephen Satterly Tagged With: , , , ,

School Kidnapping Case Ends in Sentence

July 22, 2014 by

School Kidnapping

The boy who kidnapped a girl from Varina High School at gunpoint was sentenced to five years in prison.  The boy kidnapped the girl from the high school parking lot by showing her the gun.  He held her captive in a home for hours until she managed to escape.  He plead no contest to charges of brandishing a firearm near a school.  He was sentenced to five years, but the judge suspended four years and seven months of the sentence.

school kidnapping victim

School Kidnapping Analysis

Kidnappings from school are rare, but as a recent case in Philadelphia showed, can be a high-impact event.  The most recent case has the added dimension of occurring in the school parking lot.  This adds an additional factor making it more difficult for which to prepare.  There are some factors that schools can take a look at to improve their children’s security in and out of school buildings.

School Kidnapping Prevention – Access Control

The easiest way for schools to protect children is to limit access to their school to those people with legitimate purposes.   This is done by developing protocols and procedures that screen those who enter, checking them against a database of authorized people.  Of course, these are only as good as the people who implement them, so training and accountability are a must.  High schools with parking lots can be monitored for out-of-the-ordinary behaviors, providing the school, and law enforcement, with early warning and information that may help with the investigation.

School Kidnapping Prevention – Climate Control

Schools that have a climate in which teachers, students and parents have developed trusting relationships make it easier to see when trouble is developing.  It is possible that a girl who is having trouble with a young man will tell a trusted adult.  Even if the kidnapping occurs, there may be information the trusted adult can give law enforcement that can get them to where they need to be.

School kidnappings need not occur.  By developing good school climates and tighter access controls, schools can lower the probability that a kidnapping will occur at their school.

Filed Under: Ask Safe Havens, Stephen Satterly Tagged With: , , , ,

School Shooting Threat gets Student 10 Days

July 16, 2014 by

School Shooting Threat

A 15-year old student of Skyview High School in Vancouver, Washington, was arrested for making a school shooting threat in March. During a two-week period, the student identified those he planned to shoot.  He also looked up “how to commit mass murder” on the Internet. He even gave a date for when the shooting would occur — the first day of school in September.  The police did not find any evidence that the student had a firearm, or that he had access to one.

School Shooting Threat Analysis

The student’s attorney contends that the young man was “just joking”.  However, schools cannot treat any threat as a joke.  They, along with law enforcement, must thoroughly investigate such threats when they are made. For schools, this means having a multidisciplinary threat assessment team.  This team should be comprised of professionals who have skills and training in such assessments.  They should also know the person being assessed.  Teachers, counselors, school administrators, law enforcement, mental health professionals, pastors, should all be considered for membership on the team.  The Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools Technical Assistance Center has free resources to guide schools in this process. According to the US Department of Education and the US Secret Service, a multidisciplinary threat assessment team operates under six principles:

1) Targeted violence is the end result of an understandable, and oftentimes discernible, process of thinking and behavior. 2) Targeted violence stems from an interaction among the person, the situation, the setting, and the target.
3) An investigative, skeptical, inquisitive mindset is critical to successful threat assessment. 4) Effective threat assessment is based on facts rather than characteristics or “traits.”
5) An “integrated systems approach” should guide threat assessment investigations. 6) The central question of a threat assessment is whether a student poses a threat, not whether the student made a threat.
All elements of the team must work together to paint a true picture of the subject. The goal is to help the subject, while at the same time protecting your people.  The time to plan is now, before you receive a school shooting threat, or any threat to the safety of your people.
Filed Under: Stephen Satterly Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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