A physical education teacher at a Rockville, Md., middle school was arrested in February for trespassing and burglary, as he was in the school overnight, apparently sleeping, but Montgomery County prosecutors decided to dismiss those charges last week, the Gaithersburg Gazette reports.
The initial report said Benjamin Morey was apprehended by police in a school locker room at about 2:30 a.m. after school security officers responded to an alarm he set off and called the police, who responded with a K-9 unit. One of the officers reportedly released his dog, which caused several puncture wounds to Mr Morey’s thigh.
Reports say Mr Morey had worked at Redland Middle School as a physical education teacher. His lawyer, Stephen Galfond, was quoted in the Gazette as saying that he had gone to the school, letting himself in with the keys that had been given to him, and had planned to sleep there until his duty day started. In other words, he was simply showing up very early for work.
“Upon further review of the facts in the case and based on the fact that the defendant was allowed to be at the school, it was determined to be in the best interest of all parties to refrain from pursuing a prosecution of this matter,” the paper quoted Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office spokesman Ramon Korionoff as saying about the case.
Details missing
As with many cases in our schools, details are lacking in this case. PE teachers are given keys to the school building where they work in order to secure the buildings and regain access during outside PE activities. That’s normal. What’s not normal is for PE teachers to use those keys to let themselves into the building when they’re not really supposed to be there.
An employee sleeping at the office when he shouldn’t be presents a few problems for schools. First, it’s just a little creepy and would probably trouble students or parents who found out one of the teachers was sleeping in the locker room overnight. Second, the locker room doesn’t really support this activity, which might threaten the district’s liability coverage. Public facilities are limited to certain uses, and insurance policies are written to cover those uses.
Which brings me to the real problem here. I can’t believe a sworn police officer would release a dog on a sleeping teacher. Police officers, of course, are generally protected from liability in the course of their duties, and Mr Morey was violating the district’s policies by sleeping in the locker room. So, who is accountable for what happened here?
No wonder the state’s attorney dropped the charges. Who would want to open up that can of worms? But please, folks, schools are public facilities, set up for specific purposes. They are not homes or even shelters. We need to respect those boundaries for the sake of our students, our school districts, and our taxpayers, who ultimately pay for the liability insurance these facilities must maintain.
The district will probably never be able to comment on this case, and I’m sure Mr Morey’s attorney is controlling what he says very carefully. It was sloppy, in my opinion, to release a dog on a sleeping man, but it is not our position to second-guess police action. Still, without knowing more details, we have to say what we know: Use our schools right!
