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Family of DHHS Student Navigating Protective Order Process

It has been more than a month since a shooting threat made by a male Daniel Hand High School (DHHS) student against a female classmate prompted outrage from the girl’s family and sparked conversations in the community about everything from gun violence to the role of schools and police in such cases, and the barriers for victims—especially young victims—in receiving protection and safety. The family is currently seeking a protective order from the courts.

The threats that precipitated these actions were sent by text messages, and were widely circulated on social media, using derogatory language and making repeated, specific threats to shoot and kill the female student. According to the parents of the female student, who have been granted anonymity to protect the identity of their daughter, the male student was expelled from DHHS early in April and their daughter has since returned to school after missing about a week of class and extracurriculars.

An ongoing civil case focused on a protective order is also currently being argued in court, with the family of the female student petitioning for a new order that would last a year, the maximum allowable by law. The girl’s parents—both of whom are attorneys—are also representing their daughter in the case.

Nine guns were removed from the house of the male student in the week or so following the threats, according to police testimony, partly due to a previous protective order petitioned for by the female student. Police further testified they do not have probable cause to believe there are more guns in the house at this time without ever saying they have searched the premises, which would require a warrant.

The family has continued to criticize how the Madison Police Department (MPD) has handled the case. Additionally, the female student has spent multiple hours testifying in open court and answering questions from police regarding the traumatic incident, which the family has decried as an unfair burden to put on a teenager who is not accused of any wrongdoing.

The Source reached out to Austin McGuigan, the attorney representing the male student whose identity is also being withheld because he is a minor. McGuigan declined to comment on any specifics, citing “professional rules of ethical conduct” that he said disallowed any lawyer from speaking to the media about an ongoing court case in which he or she is involved.

Asked if these standards are written down, he said that he did not have time to explain the rules but that all attorneys are “impugned with the knowledge” that they should not speak to the media on a pending case.

According to the mother of the female student, the family continues to feel uncomfortable about the prospect of having their daughter in school without a protective order, citing a lack of certainty about whether guns are still in the house of the male student and what she has described as an initially lackadaisical approach by the district to the whole issue.

“I just want to keep my daughter safe,” she said.

Superintendent of Schools Dr. Craig Cooke, DHHS Principal T.J. Salutari, and other district staff have mostly declined to comment on any issues related to the threat or measures taken by the school, citing federal privacy laws that in most cases broadly disallow the disclosure of information about students and education processes to anyone other than the student’s parents or guardians.

MPD officials have also declined to comment on details, though Sergeant Robert Mulhern testified that an investigation into potential “other shooters” referenced by the male student has discovered no evidence of involvement by any other parties in the threat to harm the female student.

After the mother of the female student engaged in a heated conversation with him a few weeks ago, subsequently posting a video of the encounter online, MPD Captain Joe Race said he did not wish to “engage” with the family through the media, and cited attempts to communicate with them more privately, including a lengthy conversation about a week after the threat that included MPD Chief Jack Drumm.

The male student additionally has a criminal summons in juvenile court, charged with threatening and breach of peace after being arrested by MPD.

The Law

The civil case to get a protective order has played out across multiple days of hearings, and involved hours of testimony by MPD officers as well as the female student herself, who could still be called on for even more testimony and cross-examination going forward, according to her mother.

Over the course of two days, the female student was on the stand for around three hours. So far, the male student has invoked his Fifth Amendment rights and has not testified, though the judge in the case recently ruled that the court would draw “an adverse inference” from that decision, and also compel him to take the stand to verbally invoke that right in response to specific questions from opposing counsel.

McGuigan objected to this, saying that his client is just a boy and should not have to testify.

The mother of the female student said she was “incredibly proud” of her daughter going through this process while decrying the need to do so, further disrupting her school and emotional life.

“I feel bad for her, I feel bad that she has to go through this,” said the mother. “You’re being questioned about something, and you’re being scrutinized and you’re being cross-examined because someone else tried to threaten your life. It doesn’t seem fair.”

In court, MPD officers testified that they took the threats seriously. Officer Odino Rasiile admitted that he did not ask the male student or his family if the gun safe was a fingerprint or combination lock or how many guns the family owned in his initial interview.

The Messages

McGuigan has contended that none of the messages were threats, calling the whole incident was “a misunderstanding between a bunch of children joking around.” He has also sought to move the proceeding to juvenile court or seal them, likely requiring a public hearing to do so.

His arguments appeared to center on how the female student initially responded to the threats, not telling anyone about them until her mother discovered them four days later, and how she engaged with the male student, even bringing up a joking conversation that took place more than two weeks prior. McGuigan also noted that the female student spoke to a sibling of the male student during and after the threats were made, which he contended was evidence that she was not really afraid.

In her responses to the texts, the female student seemed to pivot from attempting to deflect—telling the male student to “go off” and responding to some of his less aggressive insults with insults of her own (calling him “2013 Justin Bieber” at one point)—to emotional appeals, telling him that he is a good brother and wondering why he would “be mean to the nice girl.”

When the female student said she was trying to be “lighthearted” and “calm things down,” McGuigan asked why she could not give “the benefit of the doubt” to the male student that he was also being lighthearted in his messages, apparently referencing the threats to shoot and kill her.

McGuigan said he planned to have the sibling of the male student testify, which he said would shed more light on the context of the text messages. He also seemed to imply that the female student should have felt safer at school than at home following the threats because there were armed police and more people at the school.

The mother of the female student called this last argument “reprehensible,” pointing out the huge number of shootings carried out in schools across the country over the last year, one of the most deadly taking place in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012.

“If that was the case we wouldn’t have school shootings,” she said.

Though the threats were sudden, coming after weeks of essentially no contact between her and the male student, the female student testified that the male student had asked her for nude pictures of herself earlier this year, and that him calling her a “snitch” could have referred to another incident where her mother informed other parents about vaping among their mutual friends.

Fear of being labeled a “snitch” in the wake of the vaping incident factored into the female student’s decision not to report the texts to her parents or other adults, she said.

The male student also called her a “pick me girl,” a derogatory term for a woman who seeks attention from men.

The judge said that there was not enough connection between the multiple requests for naked pictures—which were rejected, according to the female student—and the threats, and struck that testimony from the record.

The female student testified that in her responses, she was simply trying to de-escalate the situation, and wasn’t sure how to react, having never experienced violent threats of this nature before.

The mother was reprimanded and threatened with expulsion from the courtroom by the judge after she interrupted the proceedings (before she had officially put in an appearance as an attorney, she said), when the judge told the daughter to stop looking at her mom during testimony.

The mother said she has no regrets about this.

“Do you expect her not to look at her mom at one of the most stressful moments of her life?” she asked.

Connecticut state statute requires even minors to testify in protective order hearings unless “there is good cause shown as to why the applicant is unable to speak on his or her own behalf.”

The mother of the female student said she was told her daughter had to sign and fill out the affidavit, and that no one could apply for the protective order on her behalf. The daughter is essentially forced to testify if the family wants a protective order in this case, she added, as alleged victims have “the burden of proving what [they] put in the affidavit.”

The Schools

How the schools handled the initial threat drew outrage from the family of the female student, though the district has remained mostly silent on the case.

Broadly, the criticism was focused on a lack of transparency, with the female student’s family demanding to be informed of disciplinary proceedings or the attendance of the male student in the days following the discovery of the texts.

In the threatening text messages, the male student specifically said he intended to shoot and kill the female student at DHHS.

The Source spoke with a school psychologist who has worked in an administrative capacity in multiple Connecticut districts and has dealt with violent threats and similar legal issues. The Source agreed to the psychologist’s request for anonymity.

According to the psychologist, the processes and responsibilities of schools when a threat like this occurs are nuanced and complex and not always “laid out in black and white.”

Parental consent is required for almost any release of school records, such as the information sought by the female student’s family. A parental release is rare, according to the school psychologist. Usually these releases are very limited in scope and go to psychiatrists or other schools, he added. But the interpretation of privacy laws is somewhat up to discretion of the administrators in a case like this, the psychologist said.

Federal law states that in an emergency, schools can disclose educational records to “appropriate persons if the knowledge of such information is necessary to protect the health or safety of the student or other persons.”

“A really strict” interpretation of federal and state privacy laws would disallow Cooke and Salutari from communicating the male student’s attendance to the family of the female student, according to the school psychologist.

Schools are still very limited by what the parents allow or consent to, even in extreme cases like shooting threats, according to the school psychologist. Schools are also obligated to be very careful as to the rights of all students and families.

One of the most important things that is required by law is a “risk assessment” once a threat is made, according to the school psychologist. This involves a qualitative interview, likely by a team of mental health professionals and potentially involving the state Department of Child and Families, seeking to establish whether the student has “means and access” to carry out the threat.

This includes things like the availability of weapons or dangerous objects, or a more formalized plan to carry out the threat, he said.

If the police or state social workers carry out a risk assessment, the school does not necessarily have to do its own independently, according to the school psychologist.

The attorney for the male student stated in court that he “got...a forensic analysis of [the male student] psychologically.”

It is not clear if the male student ever returned to school property following the discovery of the threatening text messages on March 24.

One of the reasons why the female student’s family has sought the extended protective order is because the male student’s lawyer has represented that he will seek to return to DHHS, according to the family of the female student.

According to district policies, readmission to school after expulsion is at the discretion of the superintendent, who can also “condition readmission on specified criteria.”

But the district is also required to offer—and sometimes pay for—an “alternative educational opportunity” if it expels a student under the age of 16 (the male student is under that age).

Cooke told The Source via email that “alternative educational opportunity” is “determined on a case by case basis and could include tutoring, outplacement, [or] placement at another school.”

Regardless of when or how a student returns to school after an incident, the district must implement an at-school safety plan, according to the school psychologist. This can include everything from regularly searching the student’s backpack to providing constant supervision throughout the school day, even in bathroom visits.

There should also be a safety plan as soon as possible to help the targets of threats to return to school.

When a safety plan was put in place on April 1 for the female student, a week after the threat was reported, the mother said her daughter did return, and has since felt safe and supported based on the stipulations of that plan.

“Had that been done on day one, everyone would have been a lot safer,” she said.

As far as protective orders, the school psychologist told The Source that having two students in the same building when one had a protective order against the other is essentially untenable. In larger towns, they said that students are usually moved to different schools within the same district.

Going Forward

After the initial outcry following her earliest public statements and the choice to “memorialize” the threatening text messages by disseminating them online, the mother of the female student said she feels vindicated, and has heard more positive things from the community. Her daughter has also received nothing but support from classmates since returning to DHHS, she added, and is working to get back to normalcy, even as she has to fit more court dates into her schedule.

“I think the fact that we have been public about it and assertive about it has helped,” the mother said.

Seeing the daughter able to go back to school somewhat normally has given the family “more peace than anything,” the mother said, and she also lauded the courts for accommodating the whole family’s schedules during the process.

Cooke told The Source that the schools generally have lockdown procedures, but that “each situation is different and we would respond according to the situation and timing of the event.”

Madison has implemented “school safe climate plans” at each building with designated staff members and procedures around bullying and detailing initiatives around acceptance, diversity, and community, though there was no overt focus on mental health.

The female student’s mother said she thought legislators should look at the statute that requires young people to take the stand and testify in cases where they have been threatened or harmed. She acknowledged that many families have to contend with much more difficult scenarios, where there is less evidence and resources to seek institutional protection through something like a court order.

The mother of the threatened student repeated that her full and complete priority was caring for her daughter. But she added that one realization that came out of the struggle was how important speaking out was when things like this happen—how that can change how a community sees and treats these issues in the future.

“People have all these questions,” she said. “We made it a public issue.”