Many years ago I was asked by two parents to help them with the suspensions of their daughters after both girls were beaten by a school aide who worked in the school office.
Both girls attended Sheepshead Bay HS, and both went to the program office to have their schedules changed. They were talking, and suddenly a man ran out of the office and started hitting one of the girls on her chest. He ripped her shirt, and continued hitting her. The other girl tried to get him to stop and both girls dropped their backpacks on the floor. He realized that the hallway was videotaped, so he grabbed both girls' backbacks and ran with them into the office where there was no video. In the office he continued to hit one of the girls while the security guards entered and tried to stop him. The second girl tried to grab his arm, and he took both of his hands, picked her up and flung her into a nearby desk. He then started walking toward girl2 as if he was going to start hitting her. She
saw a small pink plastic ruler on the desk right above her (she was now on the floor), and she threw it at him. The ruler bounced off of his forehead.
The school aide was ushered out of the office, and both girls were sent to the hospital in an ambulance.
That's when the parents were called and told to meet their daughters in the emergency room, and one of the parents called me when she found out that her daughter was being suspended. I sat with both parents and we obtained a copy of the video. Both parents had taken pictures of their daughters' injuries. Both girls lost their suspension hearings and were suspended for a year.
Stunned, I went to the police department, and was given the file on the man who beat the girls. It was moderately large, with a conviction for vebral harassment by a woman several months earlier. I called the DOE and a person told me that he was the cousin of the Superintendent. I then made an appointment for both girls to speak with an investigator at the Office of Special Investigations (OSI). We met with a short, gray-haired stocky man named Dennis Boyles. "Investigator" Boyles is the same man who created the report on Glenn Storman.
Mr. Boyles met with each girl separately, but I stayed in the room the entire time. After the
first girl was interviewed, Boyles told her to get her friend. She left the room to get her friend. Boyles told me that when his daughter was in trouble when she was 15, it only cost him $5000 to get her 'out of trouble'.
I told him, forget it, I was not going to give him $5000 or $10,000 and I was positive that neither parent would pay him, either. He shrugged his shoulders and said ok. After the second girl's interview we all left. Dennis Boyles found both girls' testimony not credible, and submitted his findings to OSI which said that the school aide had been physically assaulted by these two girls.
Betsy Combier