Town Torn By Allegations Of Sex Abuse At School Four Harrington Eighth-Grade Girls Say Boy Groped, Threatened Them

Allegations of sexual harassment, cover-ups and discrimination are churning in the normally quiet farm town of Harrington, Wash., where wheat prices and weather forecasts are the usual topics of conversation.

Last month, four eighth-grade girls accused a disabled classmate of groping them at school.

A flurry of accusations ensued that is still tearing at the seams of the Lincoln County community 70 miles west of Spokane.

“Right now, it’s the big hullabaloo in town,” Police Chief Mark Frank said Friday. “It’s caused quite a ruckus. You’d be surprised what goes on in small-town America that you never hear about.”

The furor began Sept. 16 when the four girls went to school district officials with complaints about the boy’s behavior.

The girls said the boy grabbed their breasts and buttocks during a physical education class and threatened to kill them and their pets.

“It made your skin crawl to listen to them,” said the mother of one girl. “We don’t want our names published because our kids have come under such criticism already.”

The boy’s parents could not be reached for comment, but their attorney, Russell Van Camp of Spokane, said the claims are ludicrous.

“All I can say is the allegations are not true,” Van Camp said.

Nothing has been proven.

Frank, the town’s only law officer, said he launched a criminal investigation Sept. 23 after receiving complaints from three of the girls.

“It’s currently under investigation,” said Frank, who has yet to talk to the boy.

The girls’ parents are happy Frank is looking into the matter but question the veracity of the school district in responding to their daughters’ claims. They say the district responded slowly and attempted to cover up the controversy.

“It’s like, because he has a handicap, he’s getting preferential treatment,” said the one mother. “A whole week went by before he was even expelled. Appropriate action wasn’t taken.”

Harrington school Superintendent Mitch Denning said that’s not the case.

“We’ve not been unresponsive, and we’ve not been uncommunicative,” Denning said. “The student is on emergency expulsion because there is reasonable cause to believe the allegations are true.”

The boy, a special education student placed into the regular classroom under the district’s “mainstreaming” program, is banned from school “until the situation is worked out,” Denning said.

Advocates for the boy say he is the victim, being singled out because he is disabled.

“This young man has been mistreated for years because he’s different from other people. He’s got significant physical disabilities and learning disabilities,” Van Camp said.

A friend of the boy’s family agreed.

“We question if anything even happened,” said the woman, who also didn’t want to be identified for fear of retribution from the girls’ families. “He’s a nice boy who has been the target of harassment for a long time.”

Another of the girls’ mothers disagreed.

“You want it to work, and you want the best for this kid,” she said. “But you’re only willing to pay so high a price for it.”

Van Camp and Denning are trying to work out a solution that would allow the boy to receive his education but not come in contact with the girls.

The two men are talking about transferring the boy to another school district or hiring a special substitute teacher who would work one-on-one with him at the Harrington school.

Meanwhile, the controversy is taking a toll at the district’s lone school, which houses about 180 students from kindergarten to 12th grade.

The girls’ parents say many students have turned against their daughters since they came forward.

“The kids are just getting treated crummy. There’s a lot of name-calling and accusations,” one mother said. “In my opinion, the victims are being victimized twice.”

Van Camp said his client also has been scorned since the allegations were made public.

A schism also developed between the adults in the community, residents said.

“Nobody’s winning. Everybody’s losing,” said a longtime Harrington resident who knows all the families involved in the controversy. “It’s a deep, complex story. Nobody should be taking sides at this point.”

, DataTimes