Now former Henley High School wrestling coach Peter Lucas is facing a $680,000 suit in connection with hazing allegations brought by a teen in his physical education class (Photo: Klamath County Jail)
An Oregon high school wrestling coach and physical education teacher is facing a hefty $680,000 lawsuit from a student whom he allegedly encouraged to be bullied in his class, at one point going so far as to allegedly shove a shoe that had freshly stepped in dog feces in the teen’s face.
As reported by The Oregonian, Henley High School wrestling coach Peter Paul Lucas has been sued alongside the Klamath County School District for $680,000 by a now 16-year-old student who alleges he was bullied mercilessly by students in Lucas’ class at the direct behest of Lucas himself. The lawsuit is connected with a prior case in which Lucas was charged with two counts of misdemeanor first-degree official misconduct and one count of harassment, three counts to which he official pleaded no contest with a view to have his charges dismissed.
Lucas has permanently given up his Oregon teacher’s license as part of that plea deal, as well as fulfilling 40 hours of community service and completing state-mandated anger management courses. Yet he had still not written a letter of apology to his alleged victim less than two weeks before a deadline of March 14 for Lucas to avoid his charges becoming a permanent part of his record.
That reluctance to accept responsibility may be part of what drove the teen alleged victim’s latest lawsuit, with the boy allegedly still suffering from depression, difficulty being in public places and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). All this despite his transfer to a new school in the district.
The most disturbing of the allegations against Lucas focuses on a shoe and canine excrement, as relayed in the new suit, via the Oregonian:
During the incident, a student placed his genitals on top of the boy’s forehead “in a show of dominance,” another student gave the boy a wedgie and other students ripped off his shoes, the suit states. That’s when Lucas pushed his shoe toward the boy’s face and asked if he could smell the dog feces that he’d stepped in, the suit states.
That’s about as disturbing a hazing incident as one will hear, at least up to the point of the unwanted insertion of a foreign object. That it was encouraged and then trumped by a teacher and coach almost belies belief.
In another disturbing revelation laid bare by the newest lawsuit, Lucas was apparently reprimanded in 2001 and had his license suspended in 2002 for reported incidents of violent aggression used against students. Per the Oregonian’s research, Lucas was reprimanded by the Oregon Teacher Standards and Practices Commission for using physical force and yelling at a student. A year later his was suspended by the same commission after he grabbed a student by the neck when forcibly moving him to the school office to be disciplined.
Those incidents might make one wonder what Lucas was doing still leading a classroom in the state some 15 years later. We don’t have a good answer for that, and we’re willing to bet Oregon and Klamath County officials aren’t thrilled with any answer they might previously have clung to.