Loudoun County Pages Merrick Garland – WSJ

Let s hope Merrick Garland is watching what s unfolding in Loudoun County in northern Virginia. A year after the Attorney General directed the FBI to investigate threats against teachers and school officials, we now have two criminal indictments. But the indicted men aren t angry parents. They re public school officials whose botched handling of two sexual assaults created a furor that helped elect Glenn Youngkin as Governor.

A special grand jury on Monday indicted former schools superintendent Scott Ziegler on three misdemeanor counts: false publication, prohibited conduct, and penalizing an employee for a court appearance. Schools spokesman Wayde Byard was indicted on a felony count of perjury. both men say they committed no crime.

The charges stem from the grand jury s investigation into the Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) mishandling of two separate sexual assaults at two different public schools in 2021 committed by the same male pupil. The boy was wearing a skirt when on May 28, 2021, he attacked the first girl, a ninth grader at Stone Bridge High School, in a ladies room.

The story quickly became national, especially after the distraught father of the first girl had to be escorted out of the school after he went down that same day to find out what had happened to his daughter. A month later he was wrestled to the ground by police at a school board meeting after an argument with another attendee. The National School Boards Association cited that arrest in the letter it sent President Biden suggesting such parents be treated as domestic terrorists, which prompted Mr. Garland s FBI directive.

via www.wsj.com