Mother claims first-grader was assaulted

Benjamin Grove

Tuesday, May 12, 1998 | 9:42 a.m.

Parents of a 7-year-old girl say she was a victim of a mock sexual assault by her first-grade classmates at Fyfe Elementary School last Tuesday.

"This was the simulation of a gang rape," the girl's mother said.

But school officials are not so sure. They say what happened was serious but not much worse than typical playground horseplay.

"I think gang rape is a little harsh for what was going on in this case," School Police Sgt. Maria Jordan, who investigated the incident by interviewing the children involved, said. "We're dealing with very young children, 7, 8 years old. I don't think they knew how to simulate that. I don't think that was their intention."

The incident happened during lunch recess.

The parents of the victim said their daughter told them she was pushed to the ground by several classmates.

As many as 10 boys joined or watched the attack, the girl's mother said. About four boys held the girl's legs and arms, lifted her shirt and lowered her pants, the girl told her mother.

One boy laid on her and kissed her as another boy served as a lookout, the mother said. During the attack, one of the boys pinched the girl's nipples and one sawed at her stomach with a ruler, leaving red marks, the mother said. She also said one of the boys smacked the girl's pelvic area.

"It was a very violent act on her," the mother said.

School police said their 4 1/2-hour investigation, which included interviewing the students, corroborated some of the mother's story, School Police Sgt. Ken Young said. However, Young said the investigation did not reveal that the girl's pants were lowered, that a ruler was used or that one of the boys smacked the girl, according to the police report.

The girl's father said he was shocked that such young children could imitate what he views as a simulated gang rape.

"I'm totally amazed when I think about what took place," he said. "When you think back on your own childhood, maybe you tried to chase the girls around and kiss them. This to me is way beyond that."

School officials don't call the incident a mock gang rape, saying there were only a few boys involved, only one of whom briefly touched the girl.

Fyfe assistant principal Alan Seidenfeld said the incident lasted only "a few seconds" before an adult teacher's aide on the playground interrupted it.

"We've got a little boy playing a little too hard," Seidenfeld said. "He made a bad choice when he knocked her down and pulled up her shirt and started kissing her. This was girls chasing boys and boys chasing girls."

Still, school officials said the incident was serious enough to keep the primary aggressor out of school three days until they had talked with his parents on Monday.

The parents on Monday said through an interpreter that their son was one of three involved. They said two other boys held the girl down while their son kissed and groped the girl. Nothing else happened, the boy's parents said.

They also said the boy was sorry and that it wouldn't happen again.

Seidenfeld said school officials talked to the other boys in the class to explain that what happened was wrong.

"It is serious," Seidenfeld said. "We don't want any kid to feel unsafe."

Child psychologist Christopher Kearney said it was extremely unlikely first graders would act out gang rape and even less likely they would understand it.

"The idea of a rape would be highly unlikely," Kearney said. "It would not be highly unusual for a group of boys to be aggressive toward a certain girl."

Experts say first-grade boys and girls typically chase each other sometimes, but mostly they stay in their own gender group.

"That behavior at a 7-year-old level is not unprecedented, but it's highly unusual for a first-grader to engage in sexual activity like that," Kearney, UNLV associate professor of clinical child psychology, said. "It's one of the red flag behaviors you want to nip in the bud as early as possible."

The parents of the girl in the Fyfe case said they also were upset that school officials did not immediately call school police and that they initially reported the incident to them as a harmless shove.

The mother said a secretary at the school first called her shortly after the incident to report that her daughter merely had been pushed down.

The girl reluctantly told her mother more of the story when she got home about two hours later, she said.

"My biggest problem was their attitude toward something that was so very wrong," the mother said.

The girl told her mother that after the incident she sat in the office teary-eyed for several minutes before she was sent back to class.

"If I had known what had happened, I would have been there in seconds," she said. "She needed comfort. She needed to know she had done nothing wrong."

Seidenfeld said the girl seemed fine. He said he had been trying to sort out exactly what happened before alarming the mother.

"It probably was a bad choice on our part," Seidenfeld said. "Until I knew everything I didn't want to make a scene out of this."

Fyfe principal Janice Strom-berg said she wanted to assure parents that school officials deal with such matters promptly and properly.

"The school takes these incidents seriously and we do act upon them immediately," Stromberg said.

Young said there was little school police could do after their investigation.

"You're talking about 7 year olds," Young said, "so technically, it's not a crime."

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