This week, a Mason County grand jury indicted Point Pleasant intermediate school Principal Cameron Moffett on charges of child abuse causing risk of injury. The charge stems from an incident 14 months ago where Moffett physically removed an 11-year-old student from a school bus.
The child had apparently been involved in a disturbance with other students and was told by a teacher to move to another seat. Later Moffett ordered the child off the bus. The bus security video shows Moffett grabbing the student. The student appears to collapse and then Moffett rolls the boy a short distance down the aisle.
Once off the bus, the child was restrained by Moffett on the ground.
The parents of the child, who is classified as a special needs student, claim the principal used excessive force. They have sued and Moffett has been removed from his principal’s job, with pay, until the issue is resolved, which brings us to the first issue in this unfortunate case.
Moffett’s attorney, Jim Lees, is furious that it’s taken over a year to even bring the criminal case against Moffett to the grand jury.
“Regardless of how you feel about the case… if somebody accuses you of something and you have witnesses to it, you want your day in court as soon as you can,” Lees said on Metronews Talkline Wednesday.
Lees theorizes that the former Mason County prosecutor, Damon Morgan, just didn’t want to deal with the controversial case. Morgan did not run for re-election and the case was held over for the newly-elected prosecutor, Craig Tatterson, who finally brought it to a grand jury.
Still, Moffett has been in legal limbo for the last year, and it will probably be another few months before the case comes to trial. The excessive delay is unfair, particularly to Moffett, but also to the family of the alleged victim, as well as the potential witnesses.
The charge against Moffett suggests the principal abused the child in a way that “creates a substantial risk of serious bodily injury or of death.” It’s a felony which could land Moffett in prison for five years, if convicted.
Meanwhile, the criminal prosecution has a potentially chilling effect on teachers and administrators who have the arduous responsibility of trying to keep the peace in schools. If a teacher grabs hold of a misbehaving student a little too forcefully, do they have to worry about getting hauled away by the police?
The West Virginia school system’s manual detailing the expected behavior for students and how teachers and principals are supposed to administer discipline is about 70 pages long. It’s hard to imagine how school officials are supposed to follow the letter of the law in every instance, especially when a situation escalates quickly.
But under state code, teachers and administrators do have the right to use “reasonable force” to restrain a misbehaving student.
Did Moffett go a little too far? Maybe, and the Mason County School Board, which is elected by the people of Mason County, can decide that. But dragging Moffett through the criminal justice system and dangling a felony conviction over his head is an injustice, and worse yet, a delayed injustice.