Audrie Pott Foundation launches petition to expel boys involved in assault

Correction/update: a previous version of this online-only story relied on the Los Gatos Patch and included some incorrect information about paternity continuing to be an issue in the Audrie Pott civil cases. In fact, The Falcon recently learned the court has ruled these claims to be invalid. The current version of the story has been corrected.

 

The Audrie Pott Foundation has launched a petition on change.org to “Expel Audrie Pott’s Assailants.” As of Feb. 19, the petition has generated almost 23,545 signatures. 

On Feb. 11, the organization also chose to post the three assailants’ names and pictures on its Facebook page. Two of the boys are seniors who attend Saratoga High, while the third senior now goes to Christopher High in Gilroy. All three of them are now 18, meaning their identities will no longer be protected in the civil trial set to occur at the end of this month, according to the Audrie Pott Foundation’s Facebook page.

Regardless, on Feb. 13, change.org removed the pictures and names of the three assailants to protect their identities since the crimes were committed when they were minors. 

The Audrie Pott Foundation, unhappy that the pictures and names were removed, said that it is working with change.org to put the names back up. It has also reiterated the names of the three assailants on its Facebook page.

By creating the petition, the Audrie Pott Foundation hopes to raise public awareness of the boys’ actions and to expel the boys from the two high schools.

“Parents need to know who these self-confessed predators are and that they continued to slut-shame young girls even after their actions led to Audrie’s death,” said Lisa Pott, Audrie’s stepmom, in an email to the Falcon.

Many SHS students, like sophomore Andre Xiao have  signed and shared the petition.

“The reason I signed was because I feel that it was a horrible thing to do and being minors should not be an excuse to commit a crime like that,” Xiao said. “It’s just as terrible.”

Despite the effort to expel the three assailants from school, the Audrie Pott Foundation claims that its goal is not to punish the boys.

“This is about school safety. These self-confessed predators cannot be trusted around young female students,” Pott said. “When a school stays silent on a matter like this, and does not take any action to protect the rest of their students from admitted sex offenders, they might as well say that they approve of sexual assaults and sharing of child pornography that occurred.”

The Audrie Pott Foundation believes that school officials have a duty  to expel the students.

“We should not even be talking about this petition if school officials had just done the right thing months ago,” Pott said. The Pott Foundation is hoping to reach 150,000 signatures before taking it to principal Paul Robinson and Christopher High School principal Paul Winslow.

Robinson declined to comment regarding this topic, citing reasons of student privacy. However, the petition may not have any effect because Saratoga High is a public school, and the boys are legally allowed to attend. Also, only the district school board can expel a student, not the principal. Bob Mistele, the superintendent, told KSBW that the school could not expel the students since the party was not a school-related event.

In addition to the petition, the Pott family filed a wrongful death lawsuit nearly two years ago on April 15, 2013. The civil trial against the assailants is set to occur at the end of the month. According to the Los Gatos Patch, charges are based on the allegation that Audrie killed herself solely because of the incidents that happened at the party and the circulation of photos of her. The Potts’ lawyer, Bob Allard, has declined to comment to the Falcon about the suits.

Two of the boys have already served 30 days in juvenile hall on weekends, while a third served 45 consecutive days. These punishments ended the criminal side of the case. However, the Potts feel that the legal punishments were not sufficient and say they hope to expose the whole story of what happened to Audrie, something they say the juvenile trial failed to do.