[nfbmi-talk] now he heads aer?

[Joe Sontag]

Louis Tutt was a coach and later a member of the administrative staff at the 
Michigan School for the Blind during the early to mid 1970s.  I don't 
remember when he left MSB or under what circumstances.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "joe harcz Comcast" <joeharcz at comcast.net>
To: <nfbmi-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, November 16, 2012 16:19
Subject: [nfbmi-talk] now he heads aer?


> Two families filed lawsuits last month against the Colorado School for the 
> Deaf and the Blind after they say school employees failed to report sexual 
> assaults
>
> on their children to police. According to the suits, both filed in federal 
> court on Oct. 9, the two children were students at the school in 2009 and 
> 2010
>
> and were sexually assaulted by a then-14-year-old student. The school's 
> then-principal, Louis Tutt, was told of the assaults but failed to report 
> them
>
> to police as required by law, according to court records. Police obtained 
> an arrest warrant for Tutt on July 28, 2011, on suspicion of failing to 
> report
>
> a sexual assault, a misdemeanor, but the warrant was never served, court 
> records show. Tutt has since moved to Virginia, where he is executive 
> director
>
> of the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and 
> Visually Impaired. Tutt could not be reached Thursday for comment. The 
> assaults were
>
> not reported to police until May 2011 when the student admitted to staff 
> members that he had assaulted five students on school grounds from 2009 
> through
>
> 2011. Records do not show if any action was taken against the assailant. 
> Tutt had left the school the month before the confession and the new 
> principal
>
> reported it to the Colorado Department of Human Services, which contacted 
> the Colorado Springs Police Department. In a statement, the school's 
> spokeswoman,
>
> Diane Covington, said that the school is aware of the lawsuits and 'we 
> have fully cooperated with authorities. ' Reached by phone, Covington said 
> that
>
> because of the lawsuits, she could not release additional information. She 
> did not answer questions about school protocol for reporting sexual 
> assaults.
>
> According to Tutt's arrest warrant, staff members saw the accused attacker 
> having sexual contact with other students and responded by limiting his 
> time
>
> alone in the restroom and access to other students' rooms. Dormitory 
> employees later told police that they made reports of the incidents. In 
> March 2010,
>
> a Department of Human Services caseworker investigated reports of sexual 
> contact and decided that they were a case of 'sexual curiosity ' and did 
> not feel
>
> they warranted further action. There were at least two students, police 
> determined, whose assaults were not reported to either police or the 
> Department
>
> of Human Services. The lawsuits were filed on behalf of the students by 
> their parents. One student is from El Paso County and the other from 
> Pueblo County.
>
> Their names and the names of the parents filing the suits have been 
> withheld because The Gazette does not normally identify victims of sexual 
> assault.
>
> The youngest student mentioned in the lawsuits was 9 years old in February 
> 2010 when he was assaulted in the bathroom. He is blind and couldn't see 
> his
>
> attacker and, since the attacker didn't speak, he couldn't recognize his 
> voice. The student reported the assault to his father, who then contacted 
> Tutt,
>
> according to the lawsuit. Tutt told the father that there was nothing he 
> could do because the attacker had not been identified, but promised the 
> staff
>
> would be more vigilant. Tutt made no written report of the assault, 
> according to the lawsuit and Tutt's arrest warrant. The other student 
> mentioned was
>
> 15 years old when, according to the suit, he was sexually assaulted 
> repeatedly over a period of several months in 2009, according to the 
> lawsuit. The complaint
>
> does not detail if staff members knew of the assaults at the time. In both 
> lawsuits, the families allege that some staff members are unclear about 
> how
>
> to report sexual assaults. Some considered them to be confidential while 
> others felt they had to report it to their supervisor. Also, there are 
> conflicts
>
> about the 'extent and type of training ' staff members receive about child 
> abuse reporting, according to the lawsuits. The families are represented 
> by
>
> attorneys from the Gasper Law Group in Colorado Springs. Along with the 
> school, the families named Tutt and the school's board of trustees in the 
> suits.
>
> Both families requested jury trials to decide compensatory and punitive 
> damages. , Contact Maria St. Louis-Sanchez: 636-0274 T witter 
> @mariastlouis F acebook
>
> Gazette Maria St. Louis-Sanchez
>
>
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