Court documents detail 12-year-old boy's alleged assault on girl at Pioneer Middle School



TACOMA -- A 12-year-old student at Pioneer Middle School in DuPont is accused of cornering a 13-year-old girl in a restroom stall at the school, grabbing and trying to remove her sweater, duct-taping her mouth and slamming her face into the wall.

The boy was charged Monday in Pierce County juvenile court with second-degree assault with sexual motivation and unlawful imprisonment with sexual motivation for an incident that occurred on Dec. 4.

The boy had just returned to school after being suspended for having been found earlier in the girl's restroom, court documents said.

In the most recent incident, on Dec. 4, the 13-year-old girl was seated in the hallway during school as a teacher's assistant. She said the boy approached her and told her that the principal wanted to see her. He then led her to the girl's bathroom door and told her she better go to the bathroom first.

According to the documents, the girl said she went into a stall and when she came out the boy was standing there. He said that he needed to see if she flushed. Court documents said the boy then locked the two of them in the stall and started assaulting the girl by grabbing her sweater and telling her to get on the ground. The boy tried to remove her sweater, then grabbed her hair and slammed her face into the wall of the bathroom stall.

Her nose started to bleed, the documents said, and the boy told her not to scream while he tried to put duct tape over her mouth. She was able to pull the tape off and screamed. Teachers outside heard the screams and rushed into the bathroom.

The teachers later said they saw remnants of duct tape on the girl's face and balls of duct tape on the floor, the documents said. Police also found a pair of scissors that had what appeared to be duct tape on it.

Police said the boy declined to provide a statement. Police said they found two sexual toys in the boy's backpack, according to the court documents.

The deputy prosecutor said that pending the completed investigation, the state will consider amending the charges to include kidnapping.

The Steilacoom School Board earlier released this statement:

“On Friday, December 4, 2015, Pioneer Middle School administration called 911 after staff responded to a student assault. The District is cooperating fully with DuPont Police. Pioneer Middle School has taken and will continue to take reasonable action to ensure all students in our building are safe.”

Some parents were livid because the school hadn’t notified them about the violent crime.

“We have a right to know that our kids are safe,” concerned mom Jennifer Johnson explained. “There's no excuse for that. If the kids are going to be in danger we should know.”

Jennifer Johnson heard from the grapevine a violent assault happened the previous week and the school still hasn’t notified any parents.

“I feel like parents should fully be aware of what's going on around this school and no one has informed us at all. Like I am completely unaware that this happened on Friday,” Ashton Smitherman, aunt of a Pioneer student, said.