Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 18, 1994 TAG: 9405180100
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHICAGO LENGTH: Medium
Instead, one girl offered her classmates $1 bribes to falsely accuse the teacher of sexual abuse, authorities said.
A police investigation eventually uncovered the plot, and school officials are trying to decide what punishment the children should get.
The teacher, Albert Thompson, hasn't gotten another teaching assignment.
"We're in a society where you're guilty until proven innocent," Thompson said Tuesday. Political correctness and children's rights "overrode my rights," he said.
Thompson told police his fourth-grade class at Fuller Elementary School on Chicago's South Side became unruly during his May 9 assignment. He said some children ran out of the classroom, and he had to stand by the door keep other pupils inside.
When Thompson threatened to report their misbehavior, a 9-year-old girl offered to pay 10 of her classmates $1 each if they falsely claimed that Thompson fondled them, police said.
Thompson, 43, never was charged. Police cleared him after some of the 10 children - nine girls and one boy - made inconsistent statements.
"One of the children finally admitted they concocted the story to get the substitute teacher in trouble," said Lt. Robert Hargesheimer of the Police Department's youth division.
The 9-year-old girl also recanted, he said.
"What's so scary - and so sad - is that you've got 9-year-old kids sophisticated enough to know they can get a teacher by saying he fondled them," said Jackie Gallagher, Chicago Teachers Union spokeswoman.
"You just don't want to think that our little kids who you're still reading nursery rhymes to are figuring they're going to stick it to their teacher."
Dawne Simmons, Chicago schools spokeswoman, said officials will review the police report before deciding whether to give Thompson more substitute-teaching assignments. She said officials are examining the disciplinary code to decide how to deal with the children.
Erin Sorenson, executive director of the Children's Advocacy Center of Northwest Cook County, believes the children should be punished.
"There needs to be some type of conscious-raising there as to what they did," she said.
She suggested that the children perform community service, write letters of apology to Thompson, or have money deducted from their allowances so they realize that police investigations cost money.
Experts agreed that people shouldn't draw too many conclusions from this case.
"This is really the exception," said Bette L. Bottoms, an assistant psychology professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago who has researched the use of child witnesses in sex-abuse cases. "Let's not use this as an example to discredit children in general."
Even Thompson said, "For every case like mine, there are nine cases" where a child really was abused. He said he hopes to become a crusader for abused and molested children.
Thompson said he wasn't sure if he wanted to return to substitute teaching.
"I think that I need a vacation," he said.
by CNB