Indianapolis Police have opened a criminal investigation after the mother of a 7-year-old boy with disabilities filed suit against the city’s school district and some of its staff members — including second grade teacher who allegedly encouraged other students to attack the boy and recorded the abuse on his cell phone.
According to the lawsuit, the abuse came to light during a parent-teacher conference last fall between the boy’s parents and his teacher, Julious Johnican, after their son came home from school repeatedly telling his mother he was abused, bullied, and harassed in class, WTHR reported.
During the meeting, the law suit says, Johnican was about to show the parents a video of his classroom environment but inadvertently played a video showing the boy being attacked by another student. According to the complaint, the mother tried to grab Johnican’s phone, which caused him to increase the volume on the video. The parents heard him encouraging the other student to hit the boy.
“‘Are you done yet?’ That’s the teacher saying that to these children as he’s beating up on this little boy. ‘Are you done yet?’ It’s shocking,” said Tammy Meyer,a n attorneys representing the family.
In the video, you can hear the attacking child continually say, “don’t mess with me,” while the boy getting hit is crying.
The abused boy cries during the video while his attacker says “don’t mess with me” over and over. At the end, the abused boy says through his sobs, “I didn’t mess with him,” as the teacher tells both boys to “go back to your spot.”
The attacking child says he wants “to get him,” and the teacher replies that he knows “you want to get him when he does things.”
The lawsuit also discusses two other attacks on the boy, in which Johnican is accused of holding him down so other students can hit, punch, and kick him.
“It appears that this was being used as a disciplinary technique in his classroom. Instead of beating a child senselessly himself, at least according to what we have, he was allowing another child to do it,” said Catherine Michael, another attorney for the family.
The lawsuit calls the tactic “reprehensible ‘fight club’ type discipline.
The video prompted an Indiana Department of Child Services investigation, which concluded that a “preponderance of evidence” support the child’s claimns and that Johnican had “knowingly and willingly engaged in behaviors toward the victims that jeopardized their overall well-being while in his care as a teacher,” according to WXIN.
According to the lawsuit, the mother met with Johnican to discuss the boy’s complaints prior to seeing the video. He allegedly told her the child had behavioral issues and was lying and/or mentally ill. At least one staff member suggested the child was “demonically possessed,” the lawsuit says.
Prior to filing the lawsuit, the mother reported the abuse to multiple staff members at the school and district. In an email, the district said it learned of the abuse on October 30 and that it called Johnican into a meeting on November 2, the day after the video surfaced. During that meeting, the district said, he resigned “before IPS could initiate termination proceedings, which the district was prepared to do based on the information received from the internal investigation.”
The lawsuit names Indianapolis Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Aleesia Johnson, George Washington Carver Montessori IPS School 87 Principal Mary Kapcoe, Vice Principal Finae Rent, behavioral consultant Anthony Bigby, substitute teacher Pardeep Dahliwal and Johnican, according to WTHR.
Indianpolis police opened the criminal investigation this week, at the behest of the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office.
The boy has been withdrawn from school and is being homeschool, WXIN said.
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[Featured image: WTHR screenshot]
