AUSTIN, Texas (CN) — The parents of a 4-year-old Texas girl who was allegedly sexually assaulted by a teacher claim the Austin Independent School District doesn’t do enough to investigate reports of sexual misconduct at its schools.
The parents of minor Jane Doe sued the Austin Independent School District, its police chief Eric Mendez and detective Alex Phillips in Austin federal court on Tuesday, alleging Title IX violations.
According to the complaint, AISD and its police department “collectively and in concert had a policy, whether formal or informal, of failing to adequately investigate and respond to incidents of reported sexual assault.” The mother and father accuse the school district of being “deliberately indifferent” to such incidents.
Doe’s parents say Phillips is a “common thread” in the allegedly inadequate sexual assault investigations.
“Detective Phillips routinely concludes such investigations very quickly without charges against perpetrators,” they claim.
Phillips allegedly does not have any specialized training in sexual assault or sexual misconduct investigation. Despite this, he is routinely assigned to investigate sex crimes for the school district, the parents say.
According to the complaint, Doe was enrolled in a pre-kindergarten program at AISD’s Boone Elementary for the 2016-2017 school year.
Doe’s mother picked her up from school on Feb. 7, and later that day she found the child in distress in the restroom.
The mother says she saw that Doe’s panties were blood-soaked and that there was severe bruising and bleeding to her genital area.
Doe’s mother tried contacting her teacher through phone and email but received no response from the teacher, according to the lawsuit.
The girl was taken to a children’s hospital at 6:30 p.m. that night. Following an evaluation by a trauma surgeon, Doe had surgery to repair vaginal lacerations and also had testing for sexually transmitted infection.
After her surgery, the trauma surgeon met with her parents and Phillips and gave the diagnosis of sexual assault, the parents say.
“Detective Phillips confronted the trauma surgeon following the diagnosis by stating, ‘You have no proof of that.’ The trauma surgeon replied to Detective Phillips that the injury was not consistent with a fall or ‘straddle injury,’” the complaint states.
While still at the hospital, Phillips allegedly told Doe’s parents not to speak to anyone about the reported sexual assault, including her teacher or the Austin Police Department. He opened an incident number for Doe’s assault and collected evidence.
Doe was released from the hospital the next day and her teacher was placed on administrative leave.
Two days later, Doe’s mother says she tried to speak with the principal of Boone Elementary, who was not available. A representative of the superintendent’s office reportedly called and said they could not discuss the matter since it was under investigation.
Then, on Feb. 15, Doe’s mother “was approached by approximately five mothers of students in [Doe’s] teacher’s class, who stated that their children have recently stopped using the restroom at Boone Elementary and instead, will ‘hold it’ from drop off time to pickup time,” according to the complaint.