NC teacher knew beating of disabled teen was coming, and didn’t stop it, lawsuit says

GASTON COUNTY, N.C. (Michael Gordon/The Charlotte Observer) - In the fall of 2018, a Gaston County student with disabilities was cornered at his high school — then repeatedly kicked, beaten and body-slammed by two other students. And while he lay bleeding on a locker room floor, a third student posted a video of the attack, a federal lawsuit claims.

More than a year later, according to the complaint, the victim has not returned to his classes at Stuart Cramer High School.

Last February, according to his family, he attempted suicide.

The alleged teenage attackers face adult criminal charges. But in a lawsuit that surfaced Thursday in federal court, the parents of the injured boy point blame at the Gaston County Board of Education and the Cramer High teacher who was in charge of the students when the attack occurred.

“What it comes down to is safety,” said Charlotte attorney Alex Heroy, who is serving as the victim’s guardian ad lidem, or legal advocate, in the case.

“When we send our kids to school, the first thing we expect is that they will be safe. That’s the first job of the school, and they failed. An utter failure.”

The parents — the Observer is not using their names to protect the identity of their son — accused the school board and Cramer High teacher Nicholas Patterson of negligence and violating their son’s constitutional rights. They are asking for medical expenses and punitive damages, among other claims.

Raleigh attorney Dan Clark, who is representing the school board and the teacher, said Thursday that the board does not comment on pending litigation.

According to the lawsuit, the target of the attack received a traumatic brain injury from the attack and still suffers debilitating headaches and acute anxiety — all of it avoidable, the parents say.

Their son, who was in his first year at Cramer High, had been diagnosed years before with a disability, the lawsuit says. At one of his previous schools, the boy received an “Individualized Education Plan,” or IEP, that qualified him for special-education services, and more individualized and protective care.

That plan followed the boy to his next four schools, the lawsuit says. But there was a hold-up at Cramer despite what the lawsuit describes as the mother’s repeated efforts to meet with school officials before the start of classes to have the plan in place.

Finally, almost two months into the fall semester, the school notified the boys’ parents that they had set up a meeting to discuss their son’s IEP on Oct. 25, 2018, according to the complaint.

Ten days before the IEP meeting, the son had gotten into an online dispute with a fellow student, Kaiser Kayton, who threatened to beat him up after classes the next day, Heroy says. According to the lawsuit, Kayton had been thrown off the school football team because of his “violent and aggressive behavior” and had been involved in other attacks on school grounds.

By the start of classes on Oct. 16, 2018, word of the possible fight swirled through the school. At a welding class that both boys attended, Patterson, who the suit alleges was aware of the threatened fight, kept Kayton out of the class.

But both students were sent to the locker room — without supervision — with their classmates to change from their welding clothes into their normal school attire, Heroy says.

There, the video shows, Kayton and fellow student Denorrian Lindsay attacked. The assault went on for several minutes and was quickly posted online. All the welding students eventually returned to their classroom except one, who, according to the lawsuit, was still lying on the locker room floor. Heroy says the boy was hospitalized for about a month.

Kayton and Lindsay were both charged with assault, court records show. In January, Kayton was found guilty and received a suspended sentence and probation. Lindsay has a Dec. 19 court hearing in his case, records show.