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A federal lawsuit involving the arrest of a Menlo Atherton High School student now names two additional defendants after an amendment to the suit was filed earlier this week. The amended suit, filed April 1, now includes Sequoia Union High School District and M-A Administrative Vice Principal Nick Muys in addition to the town of Atherton, Atherton police officers and district wellness programs coordinator Stephen Emmi.
Filed by civil rights attorney John Burris and Christoper Dean from Oakland-based law firm Burris Nisenbaum Curry & Lacy in partnership with special education attorneys Evan Goldsen and Carly Christopher, co-founders of the Special Education Collaboration Project, the suit alleges the excessive force and unreasonable arrest of two Menlo-Atherton High School students in April 2023.
The amended complaint restates the incident that reportedly occurred on April 28, 2023, involving the forceful arrest and detainment of two 16-year-old Black M-A students who the suit refers to as K.C. and D.B.
K.C. is named as a student of M-A’s Successful Transition Achieved with Responsive Support program, which provides special education students with academic, behavioral, and social-emotional support.
This is the first time that Burris has filed a lawsuit in collaboration with another law firm, said Dan Molieri, a retired police officer and lead investigator for Burris.
“Partnering with John on this case is really necessary,” said Goldsen, who finds Burris’s experience in discrimination and civil rights lawsuits essential to the case.
According to the lawsuit, the April incident began when K.C. asked the school office for his water toy that was confiscated earlier in the day. The toy was used for a game being played by him and other students called “Senior Assassin.” Despite his peers being able to retrieve their confiscated items, K.C. was singled out and denied, the suit says.
According to the suit, after refusing to return the toy, Emmi began to speak to K.C. in a demeaning manner which escalated the situation leading for Muys to intervene. While in emotional distress, K.C. asked both Emmi and Muys if they could talk elsewhere and both administrators denied his request and ordered him to leave the office, the suit says.
During the escalation, a school secretary allegedly called the police on the student and this eventually led to his arrest at a bus stop outside of the school.
The case states that M-A staff failed to call in a special education teacher to deescalate the scene, despite the staff acknowledging that he was a “mental health student” who was “easily triggered.”
The suit alleges that SUHSD, as a district that receives federal financial assistance, “discriminated against minor K.C. by failing to provide an appropriate education,” violating his rights under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 — which prohibits discriminatory acts by organizations under federal funds.
“The kid has been deprived of an education for his entire education,” said Paula Canny, defense attorney working alongside Burris and Goldsen. “Everything is going to be brought to light how [K.C.], a young man of color, has basically been denied educational opportunities by the school district.”
The lawsuit alleges that the district “acted with deliberate indifference to K.C.’s rights … by knowingly failing to provide K.C. the supports and services he required to benefit from his education.”
K.C.’s confidential school records, protected by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, were also released to the Atherton Police Department, according to the suit. The records were not allowed to be disclosed by the district without a court order or parental consent, it says.
“This case is really going to enlighten a lot of people in California as to the treatment of students with disabilities and students with disabilities of color,” Goldsen said. “I think the public will have a better view of what is lacking from the public school system and how that is directly harming students of color and students of color with disabilities.”
The school district did not provide an immediate statement and Muys declined to comment on the lawsuit.
“I hope [this case] means that the district will seek to provide alternative needs to a disabled kid instead of automatically calling the police,” said Burris. “The police is not the best answer when it comes to these kind of issues. If they had called a special education teacher none of this would have happened.”
Attorneys on the case say they have obtained all video footage and evidence of the events that took place on April 28.
“If this was a white kid, this wouldn’t have happened,” Canny said. “What I think the videos are going to show is that children of color and special needs students haven’t been legally treated by the district.”
K.C. will be enrolled in a new school on April 15, after being homeschooled since the incident and D.B is still a student at Menlo-Atherton, according to Molieri.
This is nothing more than a shakedown. Sadly, it will probably be successful for the student because corporate/government defendants usually settle because it’s far cheaper than litigation.
Well done, America.
I am not sure what’s worse, high school students spitting on and assaulting teachers or vulturous, greedy adults sweeping in to take advantage of the situation via frivolous lawsuits. I think the latter.
This lawsuit would have been totally unnecessary if the student had done what he was told by school staff and by the police. They keep forgetting to mention in their narrative that there was another student at the bus stop that did what he was told by the police and he was handcuffed with no force and released. The student that didn’t was taken to the ground to control him as he refused to follow lawful orders.
This lawsuit is a total shakedown and the attorneys involved know they will get a settlement out of the district as it will be cheaper for them to pay them off than to take it to court, even if the district prevailed.