Justice For Sexual Assault/Rape Victims At Myers Park High School
Justice For Sexual Assault/Rape Victims At Myers Park High School
The Issue
GRAPHIC WARNING
VERY EXPLICIT DETAILS OF SEXUAL ENCOUNTERS
Hello,
I am a recent Myers Park graduate. A few days ago, I came across an article about how administrators at Myers Park were handling sexual assault and rape cases. So I decided to do some more research into this topic. The amount of evidence I found is disgusting. This issue of rape and sexual assault was first reported in 2015 by WBTV. The link to this article is here: https://www.wbtv.com/story/30583871/parents-question-cmpd-handling-of-daughters-reported-sexual-assault/ Since Myers Park administrators failed to address the issue, a lawsuit was filed. The links to the lawsuit are here:
In the second lawsuit, the incompetence in former assistant principal Anthony Perkins and the former school police resource officer, Bradley Leak is clear. Even before looking at the victim, Officer Leak challenged the allegations and later dismissed them as the victim was “skipping” class. When the victim in this incident came out of the woods near Myers Park, she was described as “distressed and disheveled. Her hair was in disarray, she had mud on her clothing, her glasses were broken, and there was semen on her shirt.” Even with this information, Officer Leak put the assailant and the victim in the same patrol car. She was in shock and terrified as her offender sat behind her. Ultimately, she could not tell her side of the story. Leak took both sides of the story and did not take the student’s report of sexual assault seriously. Leak also told higher officials at CMPD not to investigate this case. Even though some of the officers and detectives were eager to get to the bottom of this, higher officials turned a blind eye to the case. One of these officials is Major Cam Selvey.
One surprising detail of the police is that CMPD ignored a total of eight 911 calls. The victim and her mother had the rape kit ready at the hospital and was waiting for officers. On the other side of this case regarding school officials, Perkins chose to only listen to the offender’s claims and reported the incident as “consensual sex”. Perkins also falsely stated in the report that “the victim’s clothes were not dirty, and her hair was not out of place”. This declaration of “consensual sex” is outright abhorrent as school administrators had knowledge of “many reports of alleged sexual misconduct n the woods”. One of the reports dates back to 2014. Once this whole incident occurred, Principal Mark Bosco held an assembly in which the following comments were made: “Principal Bosco told the students “some people go into the woods and don’t come back happy.” He warned female students that MPHS could not protect them if they went into the woods, and told male students that “in these cases, you’re guilty until proven innocent because that’s just the price we pay for being men.” As of right now, Principal Bosco is still employed as the principal of Myers Park High School.
This is only one case. As mentioned above, another case occurred in 2014. The link to this lawsuit is here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MrrXSVgWrNUprOK8FrdiuKITsiM9Jzvl/view
In this lawsuit, the assailant told the victim that he was going to bring a firearm onto school campus and threatened to commit suicide if the victim did not perform sexual acts with him. The lawsuits states that “After classes, Ms. Roe met M.G. in the quad. M.G. then walked her into the woods adjacent to campus near the Physics building parking lot. The assailant raped the victim. The victim contacted many of her friends. Her friends directed the victim to talk to counselors. The counselors redirected the victim to talk to Officer Leak. Officer Leak did not inform the victim, who was a minor during that time, of her rights. He did not even call her mother. Once Officer Leak interrogated her, the victim went to Bosco’s office to talk about the situation. The lawsuit describes Bosco’s actions as follows: “Defendant Bosco then informed Ms. Roe that he had reviewed the text messages between herself and M.G., as provided by Defendant Leak. Defendant Bosco offered to meet and discuss with M.G. the "proper way to treat a lady," but did not offer protective measures or corrective actions to prevent the ongoing dating violence and sexual harassment. Defendant Bosco then informed Ms. Roe that she could make a "formal" report against M.G., but then discouraged her from doing so. Specifically, Defendant Bosco stated that if M.G. were "found innocent" then Ms. Roe would be suspended for having sex on campus to jeopardize her good standing as a student at MPHS. Defendant Bosco directly implied to Ms. Roe that she should just let the whole thing blow over. As Ms. Roe was a straight-A student seeking to attend a top college, she declined to make a "formal" report because she did not want to risk her academic standing as a student.”
The aftermath of the incident is even more horrifying. I will directly quote the lawsuit: “For the rest of the fall 2014 semester, Ms. Roe struggled academically and had to work overtime to maintain her high grades. She often missed school, suffered mental breakdowns and would leave class to head to the bathroom where she would cry, experience panic attacks, suffer flashbacks, and otherwise be emotionally distressed while being required to attend school with M.G. Some emotional breakdowns occurred during theatre practice in front of other classmates. For the remainder of her time as a student at MPHS, Ms. Roe became socially isolated as she stopped attending any events where M.G. would likely be present and avoided any students who associated with M.G. Despite trying to avoid M.G. by changing her routes to and from classes, and avoiding certain areas on campus, she continually ran into him, which caused her to suffer flashbacks, panic attacks and other symptoms of emotional distress that caused her to run and hide in the bathroom. CMS also assigned Ms. Roe to the same lunch period as M.G. during the second semester of their junior year (Spring 2016) and the second semester of their senior year (Spring 2017). As a result, Ms. Roe would routinely leave the cafeteria to avoid proximity to him, and she eventually started skipping lunch or eating in classrooms, thus furthering her social isolation. At no point during her time as a student at MPHS did CMS or its officials ever provide Ms. Doe information about her rights and options under Title IX to obtain safety or academic accommodations to remedy the hostile educational environment on campus. Ms. Roe also avoided MPHS administrators involved in her reports, such as Counselor Folk, Defendant Bosco and Defendant Leak. On several occasions, Defendant Bosco would personally address Ms. Roe in public at various events, such as academic award ceremonies, graduation rehearsal and theatre plays, which often led other students to inquire how the Principal at such a large school seemed to know her. This would emotionally trigger Ms. Roe. MPHS students started joking about Defendant Bosco's remarks that female students should "stay out of the woods." This resulted in students sharing related internet memes and repeating jokes to perpetuate the hostile educational environment on campus. Given the pervasive culture of disregard for female students sexually victimized in the woods adjacent to MPHS, Ms. Roe felt pressured to participate in the jokes in order to avoid being identified as a victim. This caused her psychological distress and she became further socially isolated by seeking to avoid these conversations and situations with MPHS students. Throughout high school and into college, Ms. Roe has struggled with depression, anxiety, flashbacks, panic attacks, nausea, suicidal ideation, self-harm, insomnia, nightmares, hypervigilance, concentration, and other symptoms of her diagnosed chronic Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder ("PTSD") with agoraphobia, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and major depressive disorder. Despite her suffering, Ms. Roe felt unable to seek counseling, therapy or other forms of treatment while a MPHS student to avoid her parents learning about the full extent of M.G.'s sexual abuse. Furthermore, Ms. Roe felt unable to access the counseling office at MPHS given that Counselor Folk had not properly handled her report. The lack of mental health treatment exacerbated Ms. Roe's emotional distress and related symptoms. As a result of severe, ongoing emotional distress and PTSD, Ms. Roe has withdrawn twice from her "dream" college, once during both her freshman year (Spring 2018) and the other during her sophomore year (Fall 2018), which left her a full academic year behind in her undergraduate studies. January 2019, Ms. Roe entered into a residential treatment facility to receive in- patient care for her PTSD, depression and suicidal ideation. This occurred at great personal expense. In March 2019, she received partial hospitalization through the same program for another month. This necessary medical care and treatment prevented her from returning to college during the Spring 2019 semester, so she took a medical leave through the Spring and Fall 2019 semester, which has left her two academic years behind in her undergraduate studies. Given her need to continue accessing necessary medical treatment and care, Ms.Roe is transferring out of her "dream" college to another school closer to home for the Spring 2020 semester to better access ongoing support from her family.”
Also, recently, the CMS Superintendent Earnest Winston and School Board Chairperson Elyse Dashew both chose to ignore this issue when asked about it. The link to this video can be found here: https://www.wbtv.com/video/2021/06/07/cms-superintendent-chairperson-questioned-about-students-reporting-sexual-assault-myers-park-hs/
ALL OF THESE SCHOOL OFFICIALS AND ADMINISTRATORS NEED TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE. THESE OFFICIALS ARE OFFICER LEAK AND PRINCIPAL BOSCO.
ALL SYSTEMS FAILED BOTH OF THESE VICTIMS INCLUDING THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM.
3,826
The Issue
GRAPHIC WARNING
VERY EXPLICIT DETAILS OF SEXUAL ENCOUNTERS
Hello,
I am a recent Myers Park graduate. A few days ago, I came across an article about how administrators at Myers Park were handling sexual assault and rape cases. So I decided to do some more research into this topic. The amount of evidence I found is disgusting. This issue of rape and sexual assault was first reported in 2015 by WBTV. The link to this article is here: https://www.wbtv.com/story/30583871/parents-question-cmpd-handling-of-daughters-reported-sexual-assault/ Since Myers Park administrators failed to address the issue, a lawsuit was filed. The links to the lawsuit are here:
In the second lawsuit, the incompetence in former assistant principal Anthony Perkins and the former school police resource officer, Bradley Leak is clear. Even before looking at the victim, Officer Leak challenged the allegations and later dismissed them as the victim was “skipping” class. When the victim in this incident came out of the woods near Myers Park, she was described as “distressed and disheveled. Her hair was in disarray, she had mud on her clothing, her glasses were broken, and there was semen on her shirt.” Even with this information, Officer Leak put the assailant and the victim in the same patrol car. She was in shock and terrified as her offender sat behind her. Ultimately, she could not tell her side of the story. Leak took both sides of the story and did not take the student’s report of sexual assault seriously. Leak also told higher officials at CMPD not to investigate this case. Even though some of the officers and detectives were eager to get to the bottom of this, higher officials turned a blind eye to the case. One of these officials is Major Cam Selvey.
One surprising detail of the police is that CMPD ignored a total of eight 911 calls. The victim and her mother had the rape kit ready at the hospital and was waiting for officers. On the other side of this case regarding school officials, Perkins chose to only listen to the offender’s claims and reported the incident as “consensual sex”. Perkins also falsely stated in the report that “the victim’s clothes were not dirty, and her hair was not out of place”. This declaration of “consensual sex” is outright abhorrent as school administrators had knowledge of “many reports of alleged sexual misconduct n the woods”. One of the reports dates back to 2014. Once this whole incident occurred, Principal Mark Bosco held an assembly in which the following comments were made: “Principal Bosco told the students “some people go into the woods and don’t come back happy.” He warned female students that MPHS could not protect them if they went into the woods, and told male students that “in these cases, you’re guilty until proven innocent because that’s just the price we pay for being men.” As of right now, Principal Bosco is still employed as the principal of Myers Park High School.
This is only one case. As mentioned above, another case occurred in 2014. The link to this lawsuit is here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MrrXSVgWrNUprOK8FrdiuKITsiM9Jzvl/view
In this lawsuit, the assailant told the victim that he was going to bring a firearm onto school campus and threatened to commit suicide if the victim did not perform sexual acts with him. The lawsuits states that “After classes, Ms. Roe met M.G. in the quad. M.G. then walked her into the woods adjacent to campus near the Physics building parking lot. The assailant raped the victim. The victim contacted many of her friends. Her friends directed the victim to talk to counselors. The counselors redirected the victim to talk to Officer Leak. Officer Leak did not inform the victim, who was a minor during that time, of her rights. He did not even call her mother. Once Officer Leak interrogated her, the victim went to Bosco’s office to talk about the situation. The lawsuit describes Bosco’s actions as follows: “Defendant Bosco then informed Ms. Roe that he had reviewed the text messages between herself and M.G., as provided by Defendant Leak. Defendant Bosco offered to meet and discuss with M.G. the "proper way to treat a lady," but did not offer protective measures or corrective actions to prevent the ongoing dating violence and sexual harassment. Defendant Bosco then informed Ms. Roe that she could make a "formal" report against M.G., but then discouraged her from doing so. Specifically, Defendant Bosco stated that if M.G. were "found innocent" then Ms. Roe would be suspended for having sex on campus to jeopardize her good standing as a student at MPHS. Defendant Bosco directly implied to Ms. Roe that she should just let the whole thing blow over. As Ms. Roe was a straight-A student seeking to attend a top college, she declined to make a "formal" report because she did not want to risk her academic standing as a student.”
The aftermath of the incident is even more horrifying. I will directly quote the lawsuit: “For the rest of the fall 2014 semester, Ms. Roe struggled academically and had to work overtime to maintain her high grades. She often missed school, suffered mental breakdowns and would leave class to head to the bathroom where she would cry, experience panic attacks, suffer flashbacks, and otherwise be emotionally distressed while being required to attend school with M.G. Some emotional breakdowns occurred during theatre practice in front of other classmates. For the remainder of her time as a student at MPHS, Ms. Roe became socially isolated as she stopped attending any events where M.G. would likely be present and avoided any students who associated with M.G. Despite trying to avoid M.G. by changing her routes to and from classes, and avoiding certain areas on campus, she continually ran into him, which caused her to suffer flashbacks, panic attacks and other symptoms of emotional distress that caused her to run and hide in the bathroom. CMS also assigned Ms. Roe to the same lunch period as M.G. during the second semester of their junior year (Spring 2016) and the second semester of their senior year (Spring 2017). As a result, Ms. Roe would routinely leave the cafeteria to avoid proximity to him, and she eventually started skipping lunch or eating in classrooms, thus furthering her social isolation. At no point during her time as a student at MPHS did CMS or its officials ever provide Ms. Doe information about her rights and options under Title IX to obtain safety or academic accommodations to remedy the hostile educational environment on campus. Ms. Roe also avoided MPHS administrators involved in her reports, such as Counselor Folk, Defendant Bosco and Defendant Leak. On several occasions, Defendant Bosco would personally address Ms. Roe in public at various events, such as academic award ceremonies, graduation rehearsal and theatre plays, which often led other students to inquire how the Principal at such a large school seemed to know her. This would emotionally trigger Ms. Roe. MPHS students started joking about Defendant Bosco's remarks that female students should "stay out of the woods." This resulted in students sharing related internet memes and repeating jokes to perpetuate the hostile educational environment on campus. Given the pervasive culture of disregard for female students sexually victimized in the woods adjacent to MPHS, Ms. Roe felt pressured to participate in the jokes in order to avoid being identified as a victim. This caused her psychological distress and she became further socially isolated by seeking to avoid these conversations and situations with MPHS students. Throughout high school and into college, Ms. Roe has struggled with depression, anxiety, flashbacks, panic attacks, nausea, suicidal ideation, self-harm, insomnia, nightmares, hypervigilance, concentration, and other symptoms of her diagnosed chronic Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder ("PTSD") with agoraphobia, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and major depressive disorder. Despite her suffering, Ms. Roe felt unable to seek counseling, therapy or other forms of treatment while a MPHS student to avoid her parents learning about the full extent of M.G.'s sexual abuse. Furthermore, Ms. Roe felt unable to access the counseling office at MPHS given that Counselor Folk had not properly handled her report. The lack of mental health treatment exacerbated Ms. Roe's emotional distress and related symptoms. As a result of severe, ongoing emotional distress and PTSD, Ms. Roe has withdrawn twice from her "dream" college, once during both her freshman year (Spring 2018) and the other during her sophomore year (Fall 2018), which left her a full academic year behind in her undergraduate studies. January 2019, Ms. Roe entered into a residential treatment facility to receive in- patient care for her PTSD, depression and suicidal ideation. This occurred at great personal expense. In March 2019, she received partial hospitalization through the same program for another month. This necessary medical care and treatment prevented her from returning to college during the Spring 2019 semester, so she took a medical leave through the Spring and Fall 2019 semester, which has left her two academic years behind in her undergraduate studies. Given her need to continue accessing necessary medical treatment and care, Ms.Roe is transferring out of her "dream" college to another school closer to home for the Spring 2020 semester to better access ongoing support from her family.”
Also, recently, the CMS Superintendent Earnest Winston and School Board Chairperson Elyse Dashew both chose to ignore this issue when asked about it. The link to this video can be found here: https://www.wbtv.com/video/2021/06/07/cms-superintendent-chairperson-questioned-about-students-reporting-sexual-assault-myers-park-hs/
ALL OF THESE SCHOOL OFFICIALS AND ADMINISTRATORS NEED TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE. THESE OFFICIALS ARE OFFICER LEAK AND PRINCIPAL BOSCO.
ALL SYSTEMS FAILED BOTH OF THESE VICTIMS INCLUDING THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM.
3,826
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Petition created on June 9, 2021