Youth Sues Police Over Anonymity in Drug Investigation

An Irvine High School student, beaten last January by two youths who suspected him of being a drug informant, sued the Irvine Police Department on Tuesday, claiming it should have protected his anonymity.

The student, now 16, suffered a broken leg when two older teen-agers approached him Jan. 18 near the bicycle rack on school grounds and began punching and kicking him.

School officials, who first suspended the attackers and then transferred them to another school, had made public statements that the younger boy was not a drug informant. The two had attacked the wrong boy, they said.

While the student does not say in his lawsuit that he was a police informant, he does state that he talked with officers from the Irvine Police Department about drugs at the school. But the student said he had been promised by the police and school administrators that “none of the information they requested from him would ever be disclosed, and further assured (him) that his identity would remain confidential.”

The student said he had been interviewed by authorities in relation to an ongoing investigation into drug use at the school.

Arrests made later at the school followed statements by police to some students that led them to believe that the 16-year-old was the informant, the suit alleges.

The student also filed suit against the Irvine Unified School District and the parents of the two youths accused of assaulting him. The youth filing the lawsuit has also been transferred to another school.