PROVIDENCE — The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island has settled a lawsuit against the City of Pawtucket over the 2019 arrest of a 13-year-old honors student, who was allegedly handcuffed and held in a jail cell following a brief fight with another girl on school grounds.
The lawsuit, filed in June 2020 in US District Court in Providence by the ACLU on behalf of the student, identified in court filings as T.J., accused the city of violating her constitutional and civil rights, arguing in part that T.J., who is Black and Native American, was discriminated against based on her race when she was arrested at Lyman B. Goff Middle School on June 3, 2019.
On Tuesday, the ACLU announced the lawsuit had been settled with an award of $5,000 in damages, “and in consideration of additional undertakings by the City to revise its incident reporting system to make it easier to track police interactions in the city’s schools.” The settlement also acknowledged efforts made by the city “to create an opportunity for an internship” for T.J.
“At the age of 13, our client stood up for her own rights and the rights of other school children to receive an education instead of being criminalized by the public school system,” Shannah Kurland, an ACLU cooperating attorney who represented T.J., said in a statement. “Going forward, the City has committed to updating its tracking and analysis of school arrest and discipline information by race so that other Black and brown children will not have to endure what she did. I am proud of her resilience and courage.”
In an email, Jennifer Almeida, a city spokesperson, wrote, “The City of Pawtucket’s Solicitor’s office, working in conjunction with defense counsel, DeSisto Law, decided that it was in the best interest of both the City of Pawtucket and its taxpayers to settle this case as stated.
“The City was prepared to defend this case but made the business decision to settle for a nominal sum of $5,000, with no admission of liability,” Almeida wrote.
According to the complaint filed in court, T.J. got into a fight with another student in the schoolyard after the girl threw a punch at T.J., and T.J. hit her back.
“It was quickly broken up by other students, and neither student was hurt,” the ACLU said. “However, the [school resource officer], who was not present for the incident but watched a video of it, decided to arrest the students for ‘disorderly conduct’ over the objections of [T.J.’s] mother, who had come to the school immediately after receiving a call about the incident.”
The lawsuit alleged the officer, Darren Rose, had earlier in the school year told students “words to the effect of, ‘I’ve been itching to get my handcuffs on someone.’” Rose also allegedly told T.J. — who had previously not been involved in an altercation at school — he was going “to make an example” of her by arresting her, the complaint states. Officers then “perp-walked T.J. from the office on the second floor of the school to the door, past students, faculty, and staff,” according to the lawsuit.
“T.J., who was an honor roll student, was handcuffed, taken to the police station, and kept in a cell for close to an hour before being released to her mother,” the ACLU said. “The charge was disposed of when the matter went before the city’s juvenile hearing board, and despite the arrest both girls involved were only required to complete a two-day school suspension.”
The ACLU has raised concerns about how school resource officers “often escalate minor disciplinary incidents into major ones and turn routine school infractions into criminal matters, unnecessarily introducing children to the criminal justice system at an early age and scarring them in the process,” the organization said.
According to the lawsuit, students arrested at Goff Middle School were disproportionately students of color in the years prior to T.J.’s arrest. During the 2018-2019 school year, 56 percent of student arrests were of “Black (Hispanic or non-Hispanic) students,” the complaint states.
“As this case makes clear, and as we see time and time again, police should not be in schools to police everyday student interactions,” Steven Brown, executive director of the ACLU of Rhode Island, said in a statement. “Exposing kids to carceral punishment for minor misconduct at the same place they’re supposed to be going to learn every day is not only deeply harmful but, as shown in this case, unjustifiable. We’re glad this case has come to a favorable close, even if nothing can truly remedy what our client had to endure as a 13-year-old.”
This story has been updated to include comment from Jennifer Almeida.
Christopher Gavin can be reached at christopher.gavin@globe.com.