The mothers of four young schoolboys yesterday filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit – saying their kids were strip-searched by an aide at their Bronx school.
The mothers say the aide, Julio Pizarro, forced their 10- and 11-year-old boys to disrobe to their underwear in April in a private, second-floor room at PS 186, a school for special-education students near Crotona Park.
According to the complaint, Pizarro, 37, pulled the boys out of gym class and ordered them into the “time-out room” one by one because their shop teacher believed they had stolen her ring.
The suit seeks an unspecified amount of money from the city and Pizarro. The teacher was not identified.
Court papers allege Pizarro “trapped and imprisoned the children” in the room, told them they would be “taken to jail for a long time” if they were lying, forced them to jump up and down in their underwear and touched one of them in a nonsexual manner.
The boys, who were in fourth grade at the time, claimed they didn’t take the ring, and it was never found.
“They made him jump up and down in his underwear, checking his armpits and wiggling his toes,” said Carrie, one of the boys’ mothers who asked that her last name not be printed.
“It traumatized my child,” she said. “He can’t sleep at night. He’s having nightmares about going to prison.”
City Department of Education rules forbid strip-searching a student under any circumstances.
Department spokeswoman Margie Feinberg described Pizarro as a “family worker.” She would not say what a family worker does, insisting it would compromise the investigation. But a school official said Pizarro served as a liaison between teachers and parents.
Ilann Maazel, the lawyer for the mothers, said he understood Pizarro “was in charge of disciplining children.” Maazel added that a fifth boy might have been involved.
Feinberg said Pizarro – who had been at the school since 1999 – was assigned to administrative duties when the department launched a probe in the spring.
The mothers acknowledge their sons had past run-ins with the teacher who accused them of stealing but said the strip-search was inexcusable.
“These are young kids that are at this school for some kind of help,” said Annette, a mother of one the 11-year-old boys. “By doing this, it just traumatizes kids.”
Two of the boys have been transferred to other schools, and mothers for the other two said they were working to get their sons out of the school.