Eight-year-old Gabriel Taye died by suicide nearly four years ago, and for nearly as long, federal judges have studied the chronic bullying he endured at Carson Elementary School.
Gabriel’s parents sued Cincinnati Public Schools for his wrongful death and presented evidence that Carson leaders repeatedly lied to Gabriel’s mother and, as the bullying intensified, threatened Gabriel with punishment if he fought back. In defense, CPS asked for dismissal. Nothing Carson's leaders did, the system's lawyers argued, was bad enough to lift the legal shield for official acts of teachers and administrators.
But last week, three judges of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals told CPS to get ready for trial. Last week, they unanimously rejected the motion for dismissal. Of the Carson leaders' treatment of Gabriel, “This court finds their behavior, as alleged, to be egregious and clearly reckless, thus barring them from the shield of government immunity,” wrote Judge Bernice Bouie Donald in the ruling.
She called Gabriel’s time at Carson a “horrifying experience" and called CPS arguments "unpersuasive," "meritless" and a "gross mischaracterization" of the evidence the parents offered.
Scroll to the bottom of the story to read the 17-page decision.
No trial date has been set. Named in the suit are the Cincinnati Board of Education, now-retired CPS Superintendent Mary Ronan, former Carson Elementary Principal Ruthenia Jackson, former Carson Elementary Assistant Principal Jeffrey McKenzie and former Carson nurse Margaret McLaughlin.
Bringing the case are Gabriel’s parents, Cornelia Reynolds of Cincinnati and Benyam Taye of Atlanta. The family name is pronounced TIE-ay.
A jury seated in the case will look at the connection between bullying and suicide. While it is difficult to pinpoint bullying as a cause, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says bullied children have the highest rates of depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts.
Gabriel was in the third grade at Carson when on Jan. 24, 2017, another student pushed him into a wall of a boys’ restroom, the blow knocking Gabriel unconscious for seven minutes. In a school video of the assault, the other student can be seen dancing over Gabriel.
McKenzie found Gabriel and simply stood over him. School officials did not call 911 as CPS policy requires. The school nurse only told his mother that Gabriel fainted. Later that day, he complained of stomach pain and spent several hours at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. He stayed home from school Jan. 25, but on Jan. 26, two other students bullied Gabriel in a Carson restroom and stole his water bottle. He died after school that day in his bedroom of his mother's Westwood apartment.
But bullying long had been a part of Gabriel’s life at Carson, as the Dec. 29 appeals court decision outlines. In first grade, he was injured on the playground in what officials called an accident, but his two front teeth had to be removed. In second grade, students hit Gabriel in two instances but were never punished. Gabriel’s parents say the school never called them.
Three times in October 2016, three months before Gabriel died, students punched or hit him, and once when he hit back, school leaders warned he’d be punished if he defended himself again. On Halloween, Gabriel suffered a head injury, but Jackson and McKenzie told his mother they could not determine how it happened. They refused her request to look at video footage of the playground.
Earlier in January 2017, Gabriel was attacked and injured three other times. McKenzie told Gabriel’s mother that no video captured the incidents, and Gabriel’s injuries amounted to “horseplay.” McKenzie did not tell Gabriel’s mother that he had suspended two students for attacking Gabriel.
Gabriel's parents filed their federal suit in August. 2017. U.S. District Judge Timothy S. Black, who is presiding over the case, refused CPS's motion to dismiss on the matter of immunity in September 2018. If the parents’ details are true, Black ruled, they amount “to a pattern of constitutional violations.”
CPS sought the appellate review, which was more than two years in the making. Joining Donald in her Dec. 29 ruling were appeals Judges Richard Allen Griffin and Jane Brandsteter Stanch.
After the decision, CPS officials referred requests for comment to lawyer Aaron M. Herzig of the Taft, Stettinius and Hollister law firm in Cincinnati. “We are considering our options,” he said. “This case will continue in the trial court regardless. This is just an interim decision early in the case.”
The ruling “is based on (the parents') side of the story and assumes that everything they said in their complaint is true,” he said. “It does not reflect the facts as they have developed throughout this case.”
Reynolds’ lawyer, Jennifer Branch of Cincinnati, said after the ruling, “The truth about what happened to Gabe at Carson Elementary needs to be revealed and shared with all parents.”
Through his lawyer, Michele Young of Cincinnati, Benyam Taye said the ruling “is a step forward on fighting bullying. I’m excited that we are one step closer helping the millions of helpless kids like my son Gabriel Taye across the nation.”
Branch said the case against CPS has grown stronger in the past year. “We’ve taken all the depositions, and we’ve got thousands and thousands of documents. Despite the pandemic, we made a lot of progress.”
The case will proceed without Branch. In November, she won election as a Hamilton County Common Pleas judge. Taking over is her law partner, Al Gerhardstein.
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