LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Attorney Teddy Gordon has filed eight new lawsuits against JCPS for bullying. The suits contain disturbing allegations of assault, hanging, and harassment by both students and teachers.
A hug and a pat on the back were all one mother and son could give one other as they relived what they describe as torture. A student who goes only by "B.B." says, "Since I like, first started school, I have been bullied and harassed for a long time, and then when I tried for the cheerleading team it's like it got worse and I just going through a lot."
B.B. says throughout the 2011-2012 school year at Thomas Jefferson Middle School, he suffered severe attacks by fellow students and teachers because he was the only male on the school cheerleading team. He says a student even wrote homophobic slurs on his shoes.
Parent Bekishia Cosby says, "I was assured that this wouldn't happen anymore, my son was supposed to be walked to the bathroom, he's held his urine for a whole day."
Cosby says the harassment almost drove her son to suicide. She also claims school staff wouldn't do anything to protect her son, and that's why he will now be homeschooled and she is taking legal action.
Attorney Teddy Gordon says, "It is a cancer that is growing worse and worse in the Jefferson County Public School."
Gordon is representing several parents, including BB, his mother, and Crystal Bennett, who says several boys pinned her middle school daughter down on the bus, ripped off her clothes, and sexually assaulted her. LMPD says the boys have been charged and the case is closed.
Bennett responds, "It happened from Lassiter Middle School till she got home, so 20 minutes so when she came home she didn't want to go back to the school."
Another suit involves a Louisville family who is suing two fifth graders after their son was found hanging from a bathroom stall door. The Frayser Elementary School second grader was hospitalized for several days last March.
JCPS Superintendent Donna Hargens says the school system takes bullying seriously: "We actually have high academic expectations and that goes along with high academic expectations...behavioral expectations, so we certainly work diligently on that and take any issues seriously."
Hargens went on to say she encourages anyone with a bullying problem to contact their school.
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