CLAWSON (MI)
WDIV-TV, NBC-4, Click on Detroit [Detroit MI]
May 6, 2025
By Karen Drew
Allegations of sexual assault at Guardian Angels School raise concerns over handling of incident
It’s a question of not only what happened inside Guardian Angels School in Clawson but also how the allegations of sexual assault against a student were handled.
A lawsuit has been filed against the Catholic school in Clawson. It states that the school administration ignored multiple reports that a student was being sexually assaulted and harassed by his classmates.
The father of the victim, who is not revealing his identity to protect his son, expressed his frustration.
“The biggest complaint with the school was that they just didn’t handle this right,” he said.
His son was a fourth grader at Guardian Angels last year when, according to the lawsuit, he was sexually assaulted by a sixth-grade student in a school bathroom.
“As my son was washing his hands, he reported that a much older, much larger kid grabbed him around the neck,” the father explained.
The lawsuit alleges that the sixth grader sexually attacked his son.
After the incident, the lawsuit said John Doe left the bathroom as quickly as he could and told his teacher about the attack before he was sent to Principal Stephen Turk’s office.
The lawsuit states, “When Doe arrived at the front office, he asked to call his parents, but was denied.”
The sixth grader reportedly admitted to putting John Doe in a chokehold from behind and to “poking” him.
Parental concerns
The father expressed his concerns about the school’s response.
“As soon as sexual criminal conduct is reported, parents should be contacted. Medical attention should be offered,” he said.
It reportedly took hours for the school to reach out to them.
“Eventually, the parents are called, but again, it’s severely downplayed. They just tell them it happened at the school, and you should come down and talk about it,” said attorney Zach Runyon. “It seems like, from the beginning, the principal was doing everything possible to downplay the incident.”
Runyon said that the complaint alleges this behavior had been happening for several years.
“There’s actually a statement in a police report from one of the teachers that says John Doe had reported several times that he was being touched by several students over the years, and the school didn’t do anything,” Runyon said. “They didn’t conduct any type of investigation.”
The Clawson police report confirms that a teacher stated, “over the past few years, the student had reported inappropriate touching against multiple other students.”
The family said it’s unbelievable that there were incidents that were reported to police but that there aren’t police reports.
School response
Local 4 reached out to Guardian Angels Catholic School for a comment or interview, which went unanswered.
We also reached out to the Archdiocese of Detroit — also named in the lawsuit — who released this statement:
“On April 17, 2024, Guardian Angels Catholic School learned of an allegation of inappropriate behavior between students. The school followed all school and Archdiocese of Detroit policies, including reporting the allegation to law enforcement.
The Clawson Police Department investigated the allegation and submitted its report to the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office on June 11, 2024. No criminal charges were authorized.
Neither student was enrolled in Guardian Angels for the 2024-25 school year.”
The Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office has not filed any charges in the case.
Victim impact
When asked how his son is doing, the father said it’s difficult to find the right therapy and there aren’t a lot of resources. He added that his son experiences nightmares and sometimes wakes up screaming.
He said he moved his child out of the school.
The lawsuit states that the defendants’ acts and omissions have created a sexually hostile environment and abusive conditions, depriving John Doe of a safe educational environment.