David Shenhan Yang and Natasha Harris, assistant principals at Carter High School in Rialto, California, were charged with felony child abuse and failing to report child abuse. ABC News reports that they were told about multiple sexual assaults on campus but failed to pass on those allegations to authorities. A 17-year-old suspect was eventually charged with sexual battery.
The Rialto Police Department said officers were investigating a claim in mid-February in which a 17-year-old had been reportedly sexually assaulting a girl for months. Officers later learned the victim had initially reported the sexual assault to both Harris and Yang three months prior to RPD's investigation back in November 2021. …
"My daughter is being kept out of school right now and these people are still here while my daughter is losing on her education, and they are trying to make it seem as if she is a liar," said the victim's mother Stephanie Olvera. "I'm the one that called police because they failed to do so."
Another victim reported a separate sexual assault involving the same male student in September 2021, which authorities say Harris and Yang failed to report to law enforcement. Authorities said a third victim came forward this month who had not previously reported a sexual assault to school officials.
Mandatory reporting has been the law since 1980 in California. These officials were not even born when teachers were first obliged to report allegations or suspicions of abuse to the authorities. When educators fail to report, they know they're risking everything: their reputations, their careers, their families, their homes, their freedom. Harris and Yang were dragged out of their offices by cops and perp-walked for the media. The charges could see them jailed for years.
And yet they will eat all that rather than follow the law—which does not oblige them to believe or otherwise act on the allegations. Such is the level of resentment and indifference when a student complains about being abused.
Recounting what the student says she was told, her father Bryan Tecun said: "Maybe it was the way you were dressed or you might be seeking attention."
