Joe Khan, the political opponent of Bucks County District Attorney Jen Schorn, is calling on Schorn to empanel a grand jury in the Central Bucks School District child abuse case.
During a press conference Monday, Khan, a Democrat running for the DA seat, criticized Schorn by saying her office’s decision not to reconsider charges for those involved in the alleged abuse of primarily nonverbal children in a Jamison Elementary special education classroom lacked transparency.
Schorn released a statement Thursday declining to weigh in on what the DA characterized as “non-criminal matters.” The statement came the day after results from an independent investigation found that the students had been abused and neglected.
Disability Rights Pennsylvania’s report also called into question the information the police and the DA were given in their investigation. The report found administrators shared “incomplete and misleading” information with police, according to the report released Wednesday.
Although the district’s own internal investigation had found evidence of abuse in the classroom, Central Bucks “erroneously informed parents of students in Classroom and the local police conducting the ChildLine investigation that the District’s investigation found no evidence of abuse,” DRP investigators wrote. ChildLine is Pennsylvania’s child abuse hotline.
Warwick Township police, who conducted the criminal investigation late last year, on Friday released a statement saying the case had been thoroughly investigated.
Khan: Jamison child abuse report raises questions
Khan, who also identified himself as a Central Bucks parent, said that a grand jury would have the power to issue a report with recommendations, even if criminal charges aren’t brought.
“Unfortunately I’m in a position that every parent in the district is in, that we don’t have the info that the DA has,” Khan said. He called into question whether the DA or Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday had investigated independently.
“It’s impossible to say whether it’s a criminal matter if no investigation has taken place,” Khan said.
Warwick police said PA AG did an ‘independent investigation’
Warwick police said last week they had fully investigated.
“Every lead had been followed, every witness and victim had been interviewed,” their statement read.
Members of the department wrote that they couldn’t share their investigative report with Disability Rights Pennsylvania — the nonprofit with federal access authority that released the results of its investigation on Wednesday — because police believe that state law prohibits its release to non-criminal justice agencies.
Warwick police also wrote that the attorney general’s office conducted “a second, independent investigation.”
But no one interviewed by this news organization — including several eyewitnesses from Jamison Elementary and the parents of children from that classroom — was contacted by the current attorney general or his predecessor, they said.
Brett Hambright, a spokesperson for the attorney general, declined to comment in late March on whether the office was reviewing the case.
Hambright said that the attorney general does not “discuss investigations or confirm their existence” unless the referring agency comments publicly.
The office said late Monday they would comment, but had not done so at the time of publication.
Police didn’t follow all leads, school board member whose son was reportedly mistreated at Jamison says
Schorn’s statement that she doesn’t weigh in on non-criminal matters is “nonsense,” Khan said, pointing to events such as the one Schorn participated in Monday morning about legislation to improve digital literacy for youth to prevent online victimization.
Local Democratic organizers have also sought to highlight Schorn’s approach in the Jamison case. A Facebook post from an organizer for Indivisible Bucks County on Sunday called for protesters to call attention to the Central Bucks investigation at the digital literacy event, among other topics.
Jim Pepper, a school board member whose son was among the children allegedly abused in the Central Bucks classroom, said he’s “glad” Khan is calling for a grand jury, adding that he believes there was criminal conduct.
“What would any other parent want if they found out their son was horrifically abused and the DA refused to press criminal charges?” Pepper said Monday.
Pepper, the lone Republican school board member at Central Bucks, said people have cautioned him that Democrats might use footage of him criticizing Schorn over the Jamison case in attack ads this year.
“I don’t care,” Pepper said. “I’m a husband and a father before anything else.”
Bucks County Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia released a statement Monday that she had reported the Jamison case back to ChildLine after reading the nonprofit’s report in her capacity as a licensed social worker.
“(I’m) hopeful that Children & Youth will be assigned to investigate,” Ellis-Marseglia said.
Jess Rohan can be reached at jrohan@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Central Bucks alleged abuse case at Jamison: Calls for more investigation