My Daughter Texted Me She Was Being Attacked In The School Bathroom. The Principal Told Me To Wait Because She Was Eating Her Salad. Now They Are Arresting Me For Saving Her. Am I The Bad Guy For Breaking Into The School?

A Preventable Tragedy

What devastating tragedy at your child’s school was easily preventable? My daughter has been getting followed home by the same three seniors ever since she started freshman year 5 months ago, and the school’s only response has been:

“Boys will be boys.”

Well, last Monday I was eating lunch at work when I got a series of frantic texts from Laya:

“They’re in the girls’ bathroom. They’re trying to climb into my stall. Please help, Dad. I’m so scared.”

I knocked my chair over getting up, phone already dialing the school as I sprinted through the parking lot.

The Bureaucratic Wall

Secretary’s desk.

“How can… my daughter is in the bathroom! Three seniors are climbing into her stall!”

The secretary paused.

“Which bathroom?”

I put the key in and started speeding immediately.

“Third floor, I think. I don’t know, just find her!”

The secretary wasn’t speaking.

“Her name is Laya Clarks. They’re attacking her right now!”

“Sir,” she started, “unfortunately the rules state I cannot leave my secretary desk unattended and the principal is unavailable on her lunch break right now.”

I practically screamed this next part into my phone.

“Are you stupid? What are you talking about? Go to the bathroom now!”

“Sir,” she said like she was talking to a child, “please refrain from using vulgar language. They’re climbing into my daughter’s stall. I’ll make a note for when the principal returns.”

I hung up, realizing I was dealing with a human robot. Laya hadn’t texted in 4 minutes now.

Desperate Measures

8 minutes later I abandoned my car sideways in the bus lane and sprinted through the front doors of the school. The secretary looked up from her computer, mouth opening to speak about sign-in procedures, but I was already past her.

I ran to that bathroom faster than I’d ever ran in my life. But when I got to it and went to open it, my worst nightmare came true: it was locked from the inside. The boys must have gotten the keys to deliberately do this.

I pressed my ear against the door and I could hear them in there with her. Laya was crying. Her clothing was getting ripped, and suddenly her crying turned into muffled screaming like someone covered her mouth.

I threw my shoulder against the door, but these were the new doors they’d installed after the shooting four years ago: reinforced steel frames. The door didn’t even shake.

“Laya, I’m here!”

I grabbed a chair from the hallway and swung at full force. The chair shattered into pieces while the door stayed perfect. The fire extinguisher was heavier. I hammered it against the lock mechanism over and over, metal ringing through the hallway, but these doors were doing exactly what they were designed to do.

By now the secretary had climbed the stairs, panting and red-faced.

“Sir, you’re destroying school property. I’m calling security.”

“Give me the key!” I yelled.

She visibly shook at how angry I was.

“I don’t have bathroom keys, Sir,” she said. “Only the principal has those and she’s…”

By the time she finished her sentence, I was running to her office.

The Principal’s Indifference

I finally reached it, and through the window, I saw her at her desk eating a salad while scrolling through her phone. I pounded on her door hard enough to shake the wall.

She looked up slowly, held up five fingers, mouthed “5 minutes,” pointed to her food, and went back to scrolling.

That’s when the security guard appeared behind me, hand on his radio.

“Sir, you need to calm down.”

But I didn’t. I picked up another chair. The principal saw me raise it and her eyes went wide. I swung the chair through her window. Glass exploded everywhere. She screamed, dropping her salad.

I reached through, unlocked her door from inside, blood from the glass cuts dripping on her carpet.

“Sir, stop!”

The security guard grabbed my arm, but I shoved him off and went straight for her desk, yanking open drawers until I found the key ring.

“You’re insane!” the principal shrieked. “I’m calling the police!”

I ran back to the bathroom, keys jangling, leaving bloody handprints on the walls.

The Discovery

But when I got there, the door was already open. The boys were gone.

My dear Laya was curled on the floor. Her skirt torn, her lips bruised, her hair covered in white sticky liquid, and her shirt unbuttoned and bra torn. I immediately pulled out my phone to call 911, kneeling beside Laya, taking off my jacket to wrap around her.

When the principal rushed in with the security guard:

“You assaulted me.” The principal’s voice was shrill. “Jim, he could have killed me with that chair.”

I was talking to the dispatcher, one hand holding the phone, the other stroking Laya’s cheek as she choked out blood and tears.

The principal kept going, pacing now, gesturing wildly.

“You’ve traumatized my entire staff.” She pulled out her own phone. “Every student on this floor saw you acting like a maniac. That’s 200 children who will need counseling.”

The security guard was filming everything.

“This is going to be on the news,” the principal continued, now talking to someone on her phone. “A parent going psychotic, destroying property, creating an unsafe learning environment. Our insurance doesn’t cover parental attacks. The superintendent is going to…”

“Yes, hello,” she suddenly interrupted herself. “We have a violent intruder who threatened me with a weapon.”

She gave my physical description and described the premeditated assault. She never mentioned the three boys or why I did what I did.