I spoke to District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis about hate crimes in schools going unreported to law enforcement and how that has resulted not only in many students suffering physical and emotional abuse, but also teen suicides.

Since I spoke with Bonnie, Grossmont High School officials publicly noted the presence of white supremacist gangs in their schools (and the arrest of three students in late October on hate crime charges).

The California Assembly has passed two bills (AB 606, AB 1056) designed to help protect GLBT and Jewish students.

So hate crimes in our schools are getting some notice. But my concern has to do with the failure of school officials to enforce existing laws, such as failing to follow the Penal Code.

The Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act requires school officials to report hate crimes/incidents to law enforcement because such crimes are child abuse. The D.A. expressed concern when I mentioned some recent cases in which I questioned whether school officials complied with the law. She suggested I submit a request to the County Grand Jury for investigation. And I have.

The focus of my inquiry centers upon Ramelli v. Poway Unified School District. A San Diego Superior Court jury awarded Joseph Ramelli $175,000 and Megan Donovan $125,000 in June. The two had complained to school officials of repeated harassment by fellow student based upon their real or perceived sexual orientation.

Testimony by Ramelli revealed that other students harassed him at Poway High School starting in his freshman year in 2000. Students “threw fruit and other objects at him” and called him “faggot, queer and homo.” Students slammed Ramelli into lockers and vandalized his property (e.g., tearing the weather stripping off his car, and pouring sodas and emptied trash cans onto it). Ramelli testified that he reported the crimes to school officials. Yet testimony in depositions and at trial revealed that no one called law enforcement to report these acts as assaults, hate crimes, criminal threats or stalking. And that may have been one of the reasons why the jury found that school officials acted with “deliberate indifference” to the complaints.

The incidents that Ramelli and others testified about are, among other crimes, hate crimes. That’s because they are criminal acts motivated by the victim’s real or perceived sexual orientation – Penal Code sec. 422.55. School officials should have referred these crimes to law enforcement and the district attorney.

That’s what occurred several years ago, when a student tormented African-American classmates and a teacher by writing the “n word” in various areas on campus. School officials reported the incidents to police, which investigated and arrested him, and the D.A. charged him with hate crimes.

At the very least, the crimes reported by Ramelli and Donovan to Poway officials are forms of child abuse under the Penal Code, and school officials must notify law enforcement of abuse occurring at school. See Cal. Penal Code 11165.6 (defining child abuse as “non-accidental physical injury inflicted on a child by another person… the willful harming or injuring of a child or the endangering of the person or health of a child… but does not include mutual affray between minors….”).

The perpetrators of the acts in this case intended to inflict harm, not only physically, but through serious emotional damage. School officials never contended that the instances testified to by Ramelli and Donovan involved “mutual affray between minors.”

Thus, California law requires school officials in these instances to contact the appropriate law enforcement agency to investigate reports of child abuse at schools. The code excludes reports to school police and security departments (Penal Code sec. 11165.14).

A mandated reporter who fails to report an incident of known or reasonably suspected child abuse is punishable by up to six months confinement in a county jail, a fine of $1,000 or both.

School officials may wrongly assume that child abuse reporting laws only apply when school officials suspect “physical or sexual abuse of a child by an adult.” As noted above, that’s incorrect. Even in those cases where a school official suspects a student is suffering, or is at substantial risk of suffering, serious emotional damages, evidenced by severe anxiety, depression or withdrawal, a report is “authorized” but not mandated (Penal Code sec. 11166.05).

The Grand Jury has the power to investigate cases like the above. This case is unique because the evidence exists in sworn testimony available in court files.