Case against Keys school dropped after cops tried to cuff 8-year-old. But it’s not over
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit against three Monroe County School District employees sued over a 2018 incident in which Key West police officers tried to handcuff an 8-year-old boy at his elementary school after he was accused of punching a teacher.
But the lawsuit, filed in August 2020 in U.S. District Court in Key West by the boy’s mother, Bianca Digennaro, will continue against three Key West police officers, the Key West Police Department and the city of Key West, one of Digennaro’s attorneys said.
U.S. District Court Chief Judge K. Michael Moore, in a March 2 order granting the school district’s motion to dismiss, said the school employees were acting “within the scope of their discretionary authority.”
Moore also ruled the employees’ actions “did not violate a ‘clearly established’ constitutional right.”
“Effectively, this ruling means that all School Board defendants have been dismissed from the case for now while all city of Key West defendants remain,” said Gaelan Jones, an attorney with Vernis & Bowling of the Florida Keys who represents the school district.
Attorney Devon M. Jacob, who is representing Digennaro with civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, said they’re not disappointed with the ruling and that it provides clarity.
“We welcomed the decision,” Jacob said. “Before, we had a situation where the school was pointing at police, police were pointing at the school. Now we just had a court explain who is responsible for what areas. The police can’t say, ‘Hey the school turned him over to us, it’s not our fault.’ ”
The lawsuit is moving forward, Jacob said. He declined to comment on whether the boy was still enrolled in Monroe County schools.
Attorney Michael Burke, who is representing the city and the police officers, didn’t return messages left by phone and email.
The incident happened on Dec. 14, 2018 at Gerald Adams Elementary School on Stock Island. According to the arrest report, teacher Ashley Henriquez, went up to the boy in the school’s cafeteria because he was not sitting properly in his seat. When he wouldn’t listen to her, she went to get him to have him sit with her. That’s when the boy punched her in the chest, Henriquez told police.
Video footage of the incident shows one officer placing the crying boy against a filing cabinet inside the school office, frisking him and then trying to put metal handcuffs on him. But it turned out the handcuffs were too big to fit the child’s wrists.
The boy was booked at a juvenile detention facility in Key West on a felony battery charge.
About nine months after the arrest, the Monroe County State Attorney’s Office decided not to prosecute the case.
DIgennaro’s lawyers say the boy was having a mental health crisis at the time, and that police and school staff chose to have him arrested. Crump said the boy has several psychiatric conditions, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiance disorder and adjustment disorder with mixed disturbance of emotional conduct.
Those sued were police officers Michael Malgrat, Kenneth Waite and Fred Sims, teacher Ashley Henriquez, then-principal Fran Herin and then-assistant principal Kyle Sheer. The lawsuit says the named parties violated the boy’s civil rights by using excessive force, not intervening in his arrest and not considering his disabilities during the incident.
Digennaro said her son has anxiety and depression, for which he takes two types of medications and that school staff knew of his special needs.
Sources close to the investigation have said the boy’s father, who is not married to Digennaro, went to the school that day and asked the officers to scare his son as a way to improve his behavior. Asked about that in August, Crump said he did not know, and that it was irrelevant either way.
