Illegal search conducted, suit says

The dean of students at Indian Trail Junior High School in Addison "conduct(ed) a search" of a 12-year-old student's home without a search warrant while the boy's mother was in the shower, a lawsuit filed Tuesday alleged.

When the mother -- who was unaware that her son and the dean, Michael Brumbaugh, were even in the house -- later complained to school officials, they punished her by twice increasing the discipline they had doled out to her son for the knife, the suit claims.

School officials could not be reached for comment Tuesday, and the president of the board of education, Dave Williams, declined to comment.

According to the lawsuit, the problems began when Tyler D'Alessandro, 12, inadvertently brought a knife to school in his bag on Friday, Sept. 22, 2006.

After school, he was showing the knife to a friend off school grounds when another student Tyler didn't know grabbed it and ran toward some other students and "brandished the knife in a menacing manner," the suit said.

Tyler demanded the knife back and left, the suit said.

The following Monday, the parent of one of the students who had been threatened with the knife complained to Brumbaugh, who started an investigation, calling Tyler into his office.

"Without calling Tyler's parents, … Steve and Kelly D'Alessandro, or the Addison Police Department, and without obtaining judicial permission in the form of a writ or warrant … the defendant, Michael Brumbaugh, removed Tyler involuntarily from school, drove Tyler to his house, and compelled Tyler to gain the defendant, Michael Brumbaugh, access to his house," said the suit.

Although Brumbaugh knew the mother was home, he didn't wait for her to get out of the shower, nor did he tell her he and Tyler had even been in the home, the suit alleged.

Initially, the school suspended Tyler for 10 days. When the parents complained about the treatment of their son and the entrance into the home, district Superintendent "Donald Hendricks increased the disciplinary sanction to include transferring Tyler out of (school) and into an alternative educational program," the suit claims.

When they complained again, the discipline was increased to a recommendation for expulsion, the suit said.

The D'Allesandros' lawyer, Patrick Provenzale, could not be reached for comment Tuesday.