93 WIBC. It is the Kindle and Casey show. I'm Rob Casey's here and Casey. It's time for us to get an update on something we have spent a lot of time covering and now there are a lot of moving parts in communities. It appears all across the state of Indiana and that is special needs students and how allegations of abuse are popping up. It seems all over the place and what action even is being taken by our government now to ensure that these special needs students are

protected. Yeah, we need to speak with some attorneys who have been working with the family of that special needs child who was forced to eat his own vomit in the Brownsburg school district actually a story that you broke Rob Kendall. So let's get an update on what's going on in that situation. Yeah, not only would get an update on what's going on in Brownsburg now there are more allegations across the state of India. This is a huge deal. Let's bring our friends Catherine my Catherine Michael and Tammy Meyer attorneys who are representing the family in Brownsburg.

Catherine Tammy will start with you Catherine before we get to these new allegations that you guys are pursuing. Can you kind of give us an update on what's been going on in regards to that lawsuit with the special needs student in Brownsburg.

Well, right now we're looking at that that investigation is still open to the police are still investing. They're still looking where there are other incidents of abuse. What do we have in its entirety.

Right now we're looking at the criminal prosecution of all of those individuals. Nobody has yet entered a plea agreement. No one's had a trial. So Tammy and I are really in a waiting period while that investigation expands how long does an investigation typically take in a situation like this.

It can take between two weeks and two years and and when the police are looking in the they're looking through emails they're looking through data they're looking to see do we have other witnesses who haven't come forward.

And that's one of the things we talked about last time we were on is there's a lot of fear when you're a mandatory reporter. If you didn't report and because that is you can be criminally prosecuted.

But it's often very difficult to get witnesses to come forward who saw other incidents of abuse. Okay, so let's talk about the mandatory reporter. By the way, if you're just joining us, Catherine Michael Tammy Meyer. They are attorneys representing the special needs student in Brownsburg who was forced to eat his own vomit.

When you talk about a mandatory reporter, I think that's important because I know you guys are having conversations with lawmakers. There have been some changes in state law, some more proposed changes to state law.

What is a mandatory reporter and why is this at the center of what we're talking about here?

So a mandatory reporter is somebody who has witnessed abuse who is a social worker, a teacher, a physician, a therapist. If you see or know of child abuse, you have an absolute duty under the law to report that to the Department of Child Services.

And if you fail to report it, you can be criminally charged. And that's one thing that they've done in Brownsburg is all five individuals who they absolutely know saw it.

They charged. The interesting information about this law is that it actually says if you know of it. So that would mean that if somebody goes and tells another teacher, hey, I saw abuse. I don't know what to do.

That other teacher, even though they didn't directly see it now has reason to suspect that abuse took place and they've become a mandatory reporter too.

So that's why these investigations can start to take a while because I think that you want to make sure that not only are you getting everybody training, but that you're getting the full story of who knew what and when.

Catherine Michael Tammy Meyer are guests. We're talking about this right now. We're talking about the update on the special needs student forced to eat his own vomit in Brownsburg. So so question, follow up question on this.

We have had a Kristen Fercklick, who's a Brownsburg resident who's done all these public records requests. And she's had a lot of frustration with what she can't get from Brownsburg police. Is that part of it?

The Brownsburg police can't really say this, but without saying it, they kind of are saying it. Look, we're looking at more people. And this is part of this is why we still consider the investigation ongoing.

Even though people have been charged, we think there could be more people who didn't follow the law in terms of this mandatory reporting requirement.

Exactly. Yeah, I think that's exactly what's happening. And thankfully it's happening because they're taking their time and hopefully doing a diligent job on this because it's very hard to believe there would just be this one.

One incident. So you're saying with this mandatory reporting, it's almost like a game of telephone. This could go pretty far into the administrator or the staff there at the school.

Okay, Catherine, Michael Tammy Meyer are our guests. Let's see you guys are going to be back in a little bit a couple weeks with us to give us kind of maybe some more firm updates on what we've got going on in the Brownsburg case.

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