WISCASSET, Maine – A Wiscasset mother says her 14-year-old son was strangled during a middle school PE class by an 18-year-old high school senior who should not have been allowed in the gym with younger students.
The May 19 incident at Wiscasset Middle High School has now led to an aggravated assault charge, a protection from harassment filing, and serious questions about how school officials handled the aftermath.
According to court documents and school records reviewed by The Maine Wire, Ashley James filed for a Protection from Harassment Order on behalf of her son, Gavin James, against D’antae Dawkins. A court hearing is scheduled for June 10 at Wiscasset District Court.
Dawkins, an 18-year-old high school senior, is accused of placing both hands around Gavin’s throat during PE class and forcing him backward approximately 12 feet until Gavin was pinned against a wall.
Ashley James said her son’s airway was cut off for several seconds, making it difficult for him to breathe.
“This was a strangulation incident,” James said.
Gavin is a 14-year-old eighth grader. Dawkins is about a foot taller and roughly 100 pounds heavier, according to James.
After Gavin managed to get away and attempted to walk away from the confrontation, Dawkins allegedly followed after him and attempted to continue engaging.
The incident occurred while the school nurse was substituting for the PE class, according to James. She said the nurse was reportedly leaving the class unattended multiple times by going in and out of the gym.
James also said the nurse brought Dawkins, an 18-year-old high school student, into the gym to play basketball with middle school students, despite policies separating middle school and high school students.
“If the school nurse had not allowed an 18-year-old high school senior into my 14-year-old eighth grade son’s PE class, this incident never would have happened,” James said. “There are supposed to be strict rules and separation between middle school and high school students, and concerns about crossover between those age groups had reportedly just been discussed in a meeting the week prior. That makes this even more alarming to me as a parent.”
The Wiscasset School Department later apologized to the James family in a May 21 letter.
“The last 48 hours have been extremely difficult,” Superintendent Kim Andersson wrote in the letter.
But James said the school’s response after the incident was unacceptable.
“What is most disturbing to me is not only what happened to my son, but the complete lack of response afterward,” James said. “No medical attention was provided. No photographs of his injuries were taken. No witness statements were collected from the students who saw it happen. Law enforcement was not called. These are mandated reporters, and my 14-year-old son was strangled at school and then sent right back to class as if nothing had happened.”
James said Dawkins was initially suspended for only two days, and that school officials repeatedly told her they could not provide additional details because of confidentiality rules.
Concerned about her son’s injuries, James took Gavin to the hospital, where he underwent medical evaluation, including an MRI.
The case has become another example of the growing frustration among Maine parents who say they are forced to fight school systems for basic information after serious incidents involving their own children.
The criminal case and protection matter are now pending in court.
As someone certified to teach grade 7 through 12 in the state of Maine, I am disgusted by this! And there’s more that’s not being said here.
First is a school nurse certified to teach classes?!? Even though a substitute is not required to be certified, a substitute is required to give his/her/its full and undivided attention to the class being taught. So who was being nurse while she was being teacher?
Second, she permitted at least one possibly three high school boys into a class of middle school students and that raises lots of questions starting with where with those high school students supposed to be at the time? I’m fairly certain it’s not in the middle school PE class, and if she’s a substitute, that means she has a list of students enrolled in that class and is supposed to call it, i.e. mark absent students absent.
Third, there is no nurse with the last name of Maybee licensed in the state of Maine.
https://www.pfr.maine.gov/ALMSOnline/ALMSQuery/SearchIndividual.aspx#validationSummary
Unlike most states, Maine does not allow the public to look up. Education licenses online, so there’s no way to tell if this nurse has a school nurse license, but I feel to see how she could have one without also being a licensed nurse.
Fourth, she purportedly is the school nurse, should she not care for an injured child?
Fifth, why was the 18 year-old permitted to linger around her? Was it by her choice, or the fact that he is bigger and stronger than she? Or is she having a affair with him?
I still can’t go to the fact that she doesn’t have a nursing license.
Sixth, I was under the impression that bail, even personal recognizance bail, included a requirement to stay away from the victim. Yes. FERPA does preclude the district from discussing any punishment the purpose received as a student, but it does not prohibit mentioning public information such as conditions of bail.
Seventh, and I’m not even gonna go into the weeds here because it’s not necessary, there are some explicit violent student exceptions to FERPA, and they involve situations where a student has assaulted another student, which is kind of what happened here.
Eighth, stunts like this can cost the district a lot of money. All this boy has to do is say he’s afraid of going to school anymore and Wiscassett is gonna have to pay for him to go to someplace like John Babst for the next five years, including transportation. And that’s an addition to any civil right suits his parents may bring.
Ninth, assuming for the Sega argument, the school letter is accurate and three high school boys were playing against three middle school boys in a middle school PE class.
Does Wiscassett middle school have PE classes of only three students?!?
No, they’re at least 12 more students who should have been present if this was a real PE class, and where were they?
Or is the Wiscassett school one where anyone who doesn’t want to be in class can just go down to the gym and shoot hoops? Somehow I suspect it was Wiscassett property taxpayers would have an issue with that….
If this was Mount Desert Island High School, the Principal would have softly spoken to the aggressor, asking him to please release the boys neck from his grip. Especially if the aggressor was a transgender female, and the victim was a real female. There’s a video of a similar incident that I fictitiously described.
WTF, in this woked out state in particular in the hallowed halls of public education how is it that a black man assaults a white juvenile in a public school and not a single mention is made of a “hate crime”. I guarantee you that had Dawkins been white and his victim black, Aaron Frey’s civil rights rapid response team would have mounted their Augusta chopper and made a media spectacle including state sought protection orders and candlelight vigils. And the victim’s family should not relent in holding school officials, mandated reporters when a child is assaulted by an adult in a school setting, who failed miserably in that duty, accountable civilly as well as criminally. It will not be until those we entrust our children with who simply are too incompetent or arrogant to meet their statutory obligations are sued personally as well as in their official capacity or better charged criminally that this three monkeys’ mentality will be the subject of a wakeup call.
Our basic infrastructure is falling apart in Maine. Schools are dangerous. No one can face meaningful discipline because they are usually of some protected (IOW, actually privileged) identity class.
Hospitals are dangerous because they’re understaffed and facing exponential increases in demand for services while being required to take a loss on Medicaid patients which now includes the able-bodied poor and illegals. Quality of care has gotten so bad Maine has a law to require edical malpractice lawsuits at the state levels to undergo secret review before proceeding: the Maine Health “Security” Act. 🙄
We don’t send juveniles to jail anymore. Yet there are zero consequences if they don’t comply with court-ordered conditions for release, which is a large part of why Lewiston is getting shot up recently by teen thugs. We send dangerous, violent felons home to Mamma, who is probably utterly terrified of them with good reason.
Addicts are allowed to befoul our public spaces and create public health hazards while driving up our healthcare and first responder costs.
Is there any way in which the permissive, “restorative justice” policies of Maine Democrats hasn’t made everything objectively worse?
Can we get back to crime being illegal and punished again? Can fiscal common sense and expecting some self-discipline from supposed Maine citizens be a thing again?
Leeches, addicts, and criminals will self-deport from Maine if we stop making it so hospitable to them.
Maine cannot afford this leftist lunacy.
D’antae????
Another high school basketball star, perhaps?
Are you surprised?! I know I’m not surprised at all.
Because he wouldn’t transition?
But, but, Wiscasset is one them veddy veddy up scale coastal towns. At least it was until they lost the huge boost to their income from the taxes on Maine Yankee, when the greenies shut it down.
The more I think about this, the more troubled I feel. This is how incidents involving guns at schools get started. This is serious and not enough attention is paid to the incident. I smell a lawsuit…
I can’t believe that anyone would think this handled properly. The “Opps, my bad” letter from the Superintendent was sadly lacking in addressing consequences for any of the staff or students involved.
You don’t put your hands on other people. This is clearly an incident of abusive violence between an adult and a child. Whatever was said between them, physical violence is an absurd way to deal with it. He could have permanently injured that child, regardless of his intent.
This school failed miserably. If it was my kid that had been attacked I would sue the school and every single staff person involved.
If you read the comments here, a high school senior assaulting an eighth grader from the same school is the least of our problems. What percentage of people in this country are nuts, or is it just commenters?