Posse Not a School Issue, Parent Says He Was Told : Education: The father of girl who was allegedly forced to have sex with a member of the Lakewood gang contradicts principal’s account.

The father of a 16-year-old girl who was allegedly forced to have sex with a member of a Lakewood High School gang said he told school officials about the incident more than three months ago, but was told that it was “not a school problem.”

His statement at a news conference Thursday contradicts the account of school Principal Mike Escalante, who said officials first learned about sexual allegations involving a group of boys called the Spur Posse at a meeting with parents in early March.

“Within days of learning about the attack on my daughter (in December), I went to Lakewood High and reported what occurred to the principal and vice principal,” said the man, whose name is being withheld because of his daughter’s age. “Mr. Escalante told me it was not a school problem. I told him it was.”

In an interview, Escalante would say only that “specifics of the case are going to be sifted out by judges and attorneys, so we’re going to have to leave that to them. So I can’t comment.”

Sheriff’s deputies learned about the allegations in early March and said they are investigating whether school officials knew about the allegations earlier and failed to report that information as required by state law.

Attorney Gloria Allred, who is representing the man’s daughter and an 11-year-old girl who also says she was victimized by members of the Spur Posse, blasted high school officials for the way they have handled the allegations involving the Spur Posse.

“The school is not taking the proper steps to educate the students so this doesn’t happen again so that there aren’t other victims out there,” Allred said. She added that she is “putting the school on notice that we believe they should be acting properly to educate and to protect other girls.”

Allred said high school officials have scheduled assemblies to discuss the Spur Posse issue. The first will be one Monday for girls; a second will be held two weeks later for the boys, she said.

“What the principal should be doing first is counseling the boys, not the girls, and he should look the boys in the eye and tell them that sexual misconduct is not to be tolerated, and that it is not a joke or a source of pride,” Allred said.

On March 18, sheriff’s deputies arrested nine current or former Lakewood students on suspicion of raping or molesting girls.

However, the county district attorney’s office last week agreed to file only a single charge of lewd conduct against one of the boys. Investigators demanded additional evidence against four other teen-agers before deciding whether to file charges and concluded that in the case of four others, the sex acts occurred with the consent of the teen-age girls involved.