A Kansas City school is facing a lawsuit on the grounds of negligence and breach of duties that led to the rape of a 14-year old student in a motel room in 2010.
The plaintiff, now 21 years old, is suing the principal Dennis Walker and a school attendance secretary Jackie Green of former Lincoln College Preparatory Academy, now Kansas City Public Schools, for failing to protect her and for ignoring safety mechanisms that schools are supposed to have.
The convicted rapist, Roy Andrews, is currently in a state prison, serving time.
The events that led to the unfortunate event
The lawsuit filed in the Jackson County Prosecutors’ office alleged that Roy Andrews went to Lincoln Prep and managed to pick up his 14-year-old victim from school.
At that time, Andrews was already a convicted felon.
Due to the negligence of school officials, however, he managed to pick the girl up by simply saying he was sent by her parents.
The school allowed the girl to leave with Andrews, clearly ignoring its own policies and safety measures.
One of the attorneys representing the victim’s family, Gerald McGonagle, calls the school’s negligence “a parent’s worst nightmare.”
“You send your kids to school, you expect your kids to be safe, and the school allows a predator to come on the premises and walk out with your kid”.
How did the school fail the student?
Prior to the 2009-10 academic year, the victim’s mother filled out a form listing the names of people authorized to pick up the girl. Based on the policy set by the Kansas City Public Schools, students should only be released to authorized individuals.
Andrews name was not on the list.
But the school still released the victim to the convicted felon.
The Kansas City Public Schools also failed to inform the mother regarding Andrews picking up the girl.
The victim’s representative Rebecca Randles told The Kansas City Star, “This is why we have those safety mechanisms in place. He went to the school and said her mom told him to come pick her up, and they let her go.”
When the victim went home, her parents noticed something wrong and took her to the hospital. The test results came back positive for venereal disease that Andrews gave the victim, according to McGonagle.
Following the police report filed by the parents, the Children’s Division of the Missouri Department of Social Services carried out an investigation that was later turned over to the prosecutor’s office.
Before the 2010 incident, Andrews plead guilty to second-degree murder in 1990 where he shot a man. A year after he was released in 2006, he plead guilty to a felony assault for a crime he committed in Kansas City. He was also convicted of possession of a controlled substance.
In 2010, a 1990 sexual assault case was linked to him, where he forcibly raped a Kansas City woman and her daughter who’s only 11 years old. Andrews is currently serving an 18-year sentence for this crime but not for the crime he committed against the victim from the Kansas City Public Schools.
The school has yet to make a comment on the litigation.
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