ACLU Sues Tiverton Police for Interrogation of Schoolgirl, 8

The state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit against the Tiverton Police Department today that alleges an 8-year-old girl was unlawfully removed from a bus, searched, taken to the police station without her parents knowledge and questioned for hours before being released.

According to the lawsuit, on Oct. 24 of 2014, the girl was falsely accused by another student that she and another student had “chemicals” in their backpacks.

The student making the allegation told a school bus attendant, who notified the driver, who called police. The bus was stopped and Tiverton Police and school officials were called to the scene where the two girls were removed from the bus.

Police searched their backpacks and found no evidences of chemicals or “anything else suspicious,” according to the ACLU. But “despite having no probable cause to believe the two children had done anything wrong, the police still took the girls to the police station before contacting their parents and without any school officials present.”

The suit, filed on behalf of one of the girls, alleges unlawful seizure, detention and interrogation “based solely on unsubstantiated claims.” It seeks a court order finding that the actions of town officials during the incident were illegal and damages for “mental anguish and emotional distress, punitive damages and attorney’s fees,” according to the ACLU.

The lawsuit also describes what they characterized as a harrowing ordeal for the girl who, after her parents arrived at the police station, ”was questioned and accused of not telling the truth before being released.”

That night, the school notified parents in a robocall ”wrongly informing them that two students had claimed to have chemicals and made threats to set a school bus on fire,” the ACLU said in a statement.

No further action was taken against the accused students, while the girl who made the false accusations was disciplined.

Tiverton Police Chief Blakey said Thursday afternoon that he hadn’t yet seen the lawsuit and could immediately provide a statement. He said he first learned that a suit had been filed at around 2 p.m. when an officer notified him of an earlier version of this story.

The ACLU is making numerous claims against the town for providing “no training or grossly inadequate training to its police officers and school department employees regarding their duties, responsibilities and conduct toward minor school children and their parents; use of force; preventing abuse of authority, communicating with parents of students in their care, custody and control; apprehension of school children and their arrest or detention,” according to the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs are claiming emotional distress as a result of the alleged denial of their constitutional rights.

ACLU attorney Amato DeLuca said “It is unfortunate that we have been reduced to arresting without cause third grade children in the name of public safety. We must not forget that when officials fail to exercise common sense discretion, overreactions like this can significantly harm affected children.”

ACLU of RI executive director Steven Brown added: “Whether it is a Texas high school student getting arrested for bringing a homemade clock to school or a Tiverton third-grader being arrested and interrogated by police on the basis of completely unsubstantiated accusations, the rush to violate students’ rights in the name of ‘safety’ has to stop. We recognize that school officials should be vigilant in protecting children. However, turning eight-year-olds into police suspects in the absence of any evidence whatsoever is traumatizing and undermines, rather than furthers, the educational mission of a school. We hope this lawsuit will make police and school officials think twice before terrorizing young children in this fashion.”

Along with the police department, the lawsuit names several town officials and the and school department.

The incident on the bus actually began earlier in the afternoon before dismissal time at Fort Barton Elementary School, according to the lawsuit.

As third and fourth grade students were coming down a staircase, one student, identified as Student B, said to the plaintiff “Can I sit with you on the bus?”

The plaintiff said she was already sitting with someone else on the bus. Student B then mumbled something while showing the plaintiff something on a notebook. The plaintiff laughed and said “it sounded like you were going to play with chemicals” and both girls laughed.

Two other students, Student D and Student G, told a guidance counselor that they thought they heard the plaintiff say something about chemicals and proceed to get into the school bus line.

The guidance counselor spoke with Student B and the plaintiff and asked “did either of you two girls say anything inappropriate in the stairwell,” which shocked the girls.

“Did you say something about chemicals?” the guidance counselor asked again.

The girls were dumbfounded and looked upset and confused and the guidance counselor then advised the students who reported the “chemicals” chatter that everything was taken care of. She told them to sit away from Student B and the plaintiff on the bus.

Once on the bus, the lawsuit alleges that Student D then told the bus monitor that the girls had chemicals in their backpacks. The monitor then notified the bus driver, who called police.

This story was first posted on Dec. 3, 2015 and updated on Jan. 4 2016 to fix a typographical error.