From the CT Post:
One mentally disabled student sexually assaulted another last year in a bathroom at Harding High School, while half a dozen other students cheered the assailant on, police said Wednesday.
One of the spectator students recorded the incident on his camera phone and showed it around school, police said.
Patrick Nolan, 19, of Huntington Turnpike, was charged Wednesday with first-degree sexual assault, risk of injury to a child and third-degree abuse. Following a brief court hearing Wednesday in state Superior Court in Bridgeport, Judge Earl Richards ordered Nolan held in lieu of bond and continued the case to July 8.
Full story here.
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Terrible beyond words.
The reported students who witnessed and recorded this rape (“first-degree sexual assault” cited in article, for def see Conn. Gen. Stat. § 53a-70) should also be brought to justice, along with any adults, if any, who were specifically responsible for monitoring the alleged criminals and victim and who failed to do so.
From the article:
“Police said they reviewed a video of the hallway and saw the victim enter a bathroom along with Nolan and five other students. Police said the video shows another student standing outside the bathroom, apparently acting as a lookout. … The hallway video later shows the students standing outside the bathroom, huddled over a cellphone as if watching a video, police said.”
This sounds like a planned assault. The problem is why has this been kept quiet for a year and why wasn’t anyone fired over this. I understand five paraprofessionals have been quietly transferred to other schools. Why has this been kept quiet for so long?
Why has the administration of Vallas and Rabinowitz put more and more challenged students back in the main school population? Why was Pride Academy closed?
We need to stop mainstreaming mentally challenged students and provide them with the atmosphere and the teacher-student ratio they need to move forward.
This is just horrific. And I also wonder how and why it was kept under wraps for almost a year. Seems as if the paraprofessional failed miserably in his/her responsibility of monitoring these kids. Transferred is not the proper form of discipline–fired would be more appropriate. It really troubles me the other students were “cheering” the rapist on and filmed it so others could view it. That behavior is nothing short of demented; they should be dealt with also. If I have my numbers right, the victim was 15 at the time of the sexual assault and Nolan was 18. That is statutory rape and Nolan should be tried as an adult.
Where are all the people who write on BOE subjects and why hasn’t the Post solicited comments from the BOE? This is the crap that should really have people pissed off.