A former Chicago Public Schools student alleges a school security guard repeatedly sexually assaulted him when he was a sophomore at Dunbar Vocational Career Academy, according to a new lawsuit.
The student, now 18, also claims the teachers and staff at Dunbar failed to protect him and neglected to intervene and investigate the sexual misconduct, according to the complaint filed Tuesday in Cook County Circuit Court against the security guard and the Chicago Board of Education.
Named John Doe in the suit, the student was new to the South Side school in November 2021 when the security guard, Tywain Carter, started grooming him, according to the suit.
Carter told the boy he would protect him from “bullies and gang members.” He then began pulling the student out of class to take him to a staff-only computer lab and sexually assault him. The regular abuse, which included rape and other violent acts, went on for several weeks in November and December, the suit says.
“John Doe was brutally and repeatedly sexually assaulted and abused by a security guard that was hired by CPS,” said Scott Lane, a senior partner at Lane Brown and one of the student’s attorneys.
“CPS allowed these assaults and abuses to take place, and because of that, they’re responsible for what happened. And unfortunately, John Doe is not alone in being a victim of CPS failures. There are many sexual assault and abuse victims in the CPS system,” Lane told reporters Thursday.
A CPS spokesperson said the district does not comment on ongoing litigation.
“The safety and well-being of our staff and students are top priorities and foundational conditions for our school communities,” a CPS spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
The district “actively works to prevent sexual abuse and addresses all reports of abuse thoroughly. District leaders and staff understand the traumatic impact of sexual abuse and continuously strive to educate leaders, faculty, and students on the topic and the reporting process,” the statement continued.
The lawsuit seeks to determine why the staff at Dunbar failed to protect the student and spread awareness about the district’s failure to protect students from sexual assault as well as an undetermined amount of money.
The student, who was 15 at the time, told his mom what was happening in December, and his parents then reported the abuse to Chicago police and the school. Carter was eventually arrested and pleaded guilty in 2023 to sexually assaulting John Doe and another Dunbar student. He is serving an eight-year prison sentence.
“The school let me down,” the student said in a written statement. “No child should ever have to sacrifice their innocence for safety, yet I lost mine and now I endure constant pain and anxiety in this world.”
The lawsuit also alleges teachers and staff at Dunbar failed to follow CPS procedures for recognizing and reporting grooming and sexual assault, said Nick Kamenjarin, another attorney for John Doe and a partner at Lane Brown.
“This was a classic example of the very thing that CPS staff, administrators and teachers were trained to witness and to report,” Kamenjarin said.
Teachers and administrators at Dunbar should have recognized something was wrong when Carter repeatedly took the student out of class for no reason and brought him to an undisclosed location for an extended period of time, Kamenjarin said.
“Yet they continually failed to follow not only their training, but the written policies and procedures of Chicago Public Schools, as well as their common sense,” he said.
The boy’s father said in a written statement that even after Carter was sent to prison, “no one from Dunbar ever reached out to us to see how our son was doing, much less say they were sorry for what had happened to him. That hurts.”
John Doe stayed at Dunbar for several weeks after the abuse, but he eventually left the school because it became too painful to stay, his attorneys said. He eventually graduated from a different school. But he has since struggled to have a normal life and recover from the trauma, his mom said in a statement.
“CPS ignored all of these safeguards, and frankly, demonstrated that they were cold and uncaring. They just never did anything,” Lane said.
“It’s that attitude, that cold and uncaring attitude, that allowed these assaults and abuse to take place in the first place.”