KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A family of a 14-year-old girl is suing the Kansas City, Missouri School District after a man with a violent criminal background was permitted to take her out of school.
Her family said what happened next changed their lives forever. The man was later convicted of raping the young girl.
Now they’re suing the Kansas City, Missouri School District, and they said it’s to make sure other students don’t have to go through the same thing.
“This is not the type of thing any parent wants to happen to their child,” said the family’s attorney, Rebecca Randles.
According to the lawsuit, Roy Andrews showed up at Lincoln College Prep in May 2010, and specifically asked for the 14-year-old girl identified as “Jane Doe L.A.” in court documents.
Randles said the school’s secretary allowed the teenager to leave school with Andrews, even though he hadn’t been approved to pick her up from school.
“They didn’t even bother to pick up the phone to see if this was someone who could take the child with them,” Randles added.
Randles points out that school districts put policies in place to protect students, and that Andrews shouldn’t have been able to just show up at Lincoln College Prep and leave with the victim, even if he knew her family.
“This would have been the perfect way to protect her, would be just follow the policies,” Randles said.
In a statement from the victim’s mother, she said in part that their whole family has been hurt, betrayed, and devastated by this, and they’re still suffering now even all of these years later.
“An incident like this shatters a child,” Randles said. “This was a bright, articulate, smart, well-educated, little girl.”
Jane Doe’s mother said that the school failed her child. Had the school not allowed him in, she said he wouldn’t have had access to her child, and this would not have happened.
“It’s taken a long time, a lot of therapy, a lot of work, to try to get back to being and functioning the way that she did when she was a child,” said Randles.
After Andrews took the teenager to a hotel where she said he raped her repeatedly, she said he dropped her off at her house.
Her mother realized something was wrong and took her to the hospital.
Andrews was eventually convicted of raping the teenager, but she isn’t his only victim. He was already a convicted felon at the time of this crime.
“One of the purposes for a lawsuit like this is to make sure this never happens to any other child, because this is a parent’s worst nightmare,” Randles said.
The KCMO School District said it can’t comment on the case because it’s pending litigation.
Roy Andrews is currently in prison, serving 18 years for raping a woman in 1990. He also served time for second-degree murder after shooting at man in the ’90s. While in prison for second-degree murder, he also attacked a prison employee.
