A teen girl who was repeatedly stabbed in class at San Ysidro High School last year is suing the school district and her ex-boyfriend — a fellow student who she accuses of stabbing her— and reveals new details of the attack, including that the assailant’s face was apparently wrapped in bandages.
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The suit, filed in San Diego Superior Court late Thursday, accuses Sweetwater Union High School District of negligence, breach of duty and a dangerous condition of public property. Accusations against the alleged assailant and his parents include assault and battery, and his parents are accused of negligent supervision.
The district said Friday that “health, safety, and well-being of our students and staff remain our highest priority. The Sweetwater Union High School District is committed to maintaining safe and supportive learning environments across all our schools.” The district declined to comment on the suit itself, citing a long-standing practice of not commenting on active litigation.
The accused teen was a minor at the time of the incident, and the suit does not include the names of his parents.
The girl’s attorney, Benjamin Schenk, said the teen was “physically, mentally and emotionally injured. Thankfully, she has an amazing, supportive family and community who are committed to her healing, but it’s a long road.”
According to the lawsuit, the girl was 16 at the time of the Dec. 10 attack, which occurred during her first-period class. The classroom door was propped open — the school’s air conditioning was broken — as she and others were taking a brief break from an assignment.
“A figure dressed in all black, his face wrapped in bandages exposing only a single eye, walked past that open door,” the suit alleges.
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He circled back, passing the door again. On his third pass, the suit alleges, he rushed in, put the teen in a chokehold from behind, attempted to slit her throat then plunged the knife into her — head, face, neck, chest — repeatedly “while her classmates screamed for help that was nowhere to be found.” Eight seconds later, the suit alleges, the assailant stopped, “calmly” walked off, changed clothes and “blended back into the student population.”
The victim collapsed, and friends tried to stanch the bleeding, the suit says. The school went on lockdown, and police — who saw from security footage that the suspect had changed clothes, the suit alleges — searched for him. He was arrested a little less than two hours after the attack. San Diego police said he was in possession of the knife and clothing from the assault.
The suit alleges that the fact that the assailant was able to commit the attack, flee, change clothes and “walk freely for nearly two hours before being located … underscores the catastrophic failure of the (school district’s) supervision, access control, and emergency response protocols.”
According to the suit, the school district’s safety “Comprehensive Safety Plan” has not been updated since 2008, there were no security personnel employed or present on campus, and the security cameras were not always monitored live. The attack, the suit alleges, was “the predictable consequence of a school district that had allowed its safety infrastructure to decay to the point of uselessness.”
Because the suspected assailant is a minor, it’s unclear whether prosecutors filed charges. Most juvenile cases are confidential.
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