A vice-principal stabbed by a 15-year-old student inside a Halifax high school is suing a school security guard, claiming the guard failed to follow proper search and de-escalation procedures before the attack.
In a statement of claim filed April 28, vice-principal Wayne Rodgers alleges that on March 20, 2023, Ryan Cosgrove failed to complete a search of the student and his belongings after the security guard pulled a weapon from the student’s school bag.
At the time, all three people were in Rodgers’s office at Charles P. Allen High School in suburban Bedford.
According to an agreed statement of facts presented last year to a Nova Scotia youth court judge, Cosgrove left the office with a butterfly knife and called police, leaving Rodgers alone with the student in an office that was locked from the outside.
Moments later, the student pulled a folding knife from his school bag and stabbed the vice-principal twice as he tried to escape. The boy fled the office and stabbed an administrative assistant in the back before he left the building and was arrested on school grounds.
He later pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated assault and was sentenced to two years of probation. His identity is protected from publication under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
Rodgers was stabbed in the upper back and lower chest, which caused air and blood to leak into his chest cavity, according to the lawsuit filed with the Nova Scotia Supreme Court. The lawsuit also alleges Cosgrove failed to recognize the student was getting agitated and aggressive. And the document says the security guard’s decision to close the office’s locked door left the vice-principal trapped with the assailant.
Attempts to reach Cosgrove for comment were unsuccessful.
The lawsuit also names the Halifax Regional Centre for Education, alleging the education authority failed to properly train Cosgrove in search and seizure techniques or de-escalation procedures. As well, the lawsuit says the education authority is vicariously liable for the damages caused by the security guard, saying the centre was aware of the history of violence at the high school.
The authority was negligent for employing an improperly trained security guard and for failing to have any hiring or training policies for security guards, the lawsuit alleges.
On another front, the lawsuit alleges the education authority failed to warn Rodgers about the student’s “propensity for violence.”
The education authority issued a brief statement Tuesday saying it couldn’t comment on the allegations because the case, which deals with a private matter with an employee on leave, is before the courts.
Meanwhile, Rodgers continues to suffer from pain, discomfort and other limitations, as well as unspecified psychological injuries, the document says.
The allegations in the statement of claim have yet to be tested in court.