Important I'm Not Your Lawyer / Don't Report Me to the State Bar Disclaimer: None of the following is legal advice, and I don't in any way represent you or your interests.
Also, I feel like we're getting into weird philosophical and legal debates here, but legal debates is my career so I'm happy to nerd out:
They viewed it and said they didn't find anything. They have no obligation to hand it over. Expectation of privacy isn't an issue - this isn't a legal matter of illegal recording. Cell phone and internet companies don't resist subpoenas because they have to - in fact they could legally hand your info over the first moment a cop asks them to. But they don't, because it's considered bad form and makes it seem like they don't guard the information carefully. But this situation isn't as heavy, you are correct.
However, blaming them for not doing enough to stop it is a meaningless argument outside of a lengthy and quite frankly, useless legal battle because unless you find a bottom-of-the-barrel lawyer, it'll cost a lot more than 20k to hit up a major school with a lawsuit and argue over negligence liability for property damage.
I also don't think they're calling OP's son a liar. There's a wide time frame where the damage could have occurred, and they only have theories as to who did it and the school has already been very, very oddly forthcoming with info, according to OP. Where I went to school, the administration would never tell a random person a minor child's life schedule, because that's actually skirting questionable legality. Educational info is legally protected and barred from disclosure, including any records they hold on students. I do think it's weird they won't let him see it, but not unheard of. It's bad form to let someone see your entire security system, and even worse to just send them a copy of the tapes.
It's possible what happened is what happened to me: my mother borrowed my old car, and she went to work (nice, fancy private elementary school in Santa Monica). While in the teacher lot, someone broke in and stole my drumsticks and my GPS, leaving my $20 bill in the cupholder because they were really, really into my 15 sets of used jazz drumsticks and navigating to their next gig, I guess. The tapes were viewed (not by my mom, but by the police) but the resolution was so bad they couldn't see any faces or license plates. They were pretty embarrassed about that, as it seemed they were mostly a deterrent not a safeguard. I wouldn't doubt that a high school isn't using real, real nice cameras in the lot. Dunno how nice the place is. But if it's a blur, or no visible face is present, the LAST THING I would EVER do is show that to a parent who definitely has a target in mind because you know that's only going to make him "sure that's him/her".
OP: I think the best bet you have is to calmly file a police report, because until you do so, the school has no sort of pressure. You and your lawyer can't do anything at all, and filing frivolous lawsuits or requests for things isn't a level-headed way to get this from the school. As someone with a fair amount of actual legal experience, making people bristly early on is a one-way ticket to No-Cooperationville, Population: everyone who you need something from. Only ever threaten someone as your absolute last resort, when being reasonable is explicitly something they said they aren't interested in hearing.
I'd tell them that you are concerned, and appreciate their help and understand why they might not want to share everything with you, but because you aren't satisfied with the resolution here you're considering filing a police report.
For a bonus, if they have a lawyer there, you can mention things like: your son doesn't feel safe at school with this continuing, the constant harassment is disrupting his studies, etc. (which obviously have to be true), because these things are fun torts with unlimited damages and will make lawyers super uncomfortable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by extrashaky
No, I can't understand that.
The evidence he has is his son's statement that he parked the car in a school parking lot and came back to find that someone had damaged it while it was there on school property. The damage itself is evidence that something happened to the car. If the parking lot has cameras pointed at it, the best way to find out what happened to it is to review the footage. The footage is either going to show the source of the damage or prove that the car was not damaged there, either of which will resolve the matter with the school.
There's no expectation of privacy in a public parking lot, not even for teenagers. There are no privacy excuses for not providing the video. The only reason they would have for not allowing him to see the video is if the school officials have something to hide.
He may not have the legal right to view the video. But that doesn't mean he can't ask. And it doesn't mean he can't make an unholy nuisance of himself to the school administrator if the administrator won't cooperate. If he gets a call from a lawyer demanding the video, he might just decide whatever he's hiding is not worth it and hand it over.
And one other thing. If the school administrators say that the video doesn't show anything happening to the car, they are in essence calling the OP's son a liar. I think if they're going to imply that, they need to back it up by providing access to the video.
At this point the school appears to have an ongoing problem with continuing vandalism of cars on their parking lot, and not only are they doing nothing about it, they are obstructing the parent's efforts to get to the bottom of it and protecting the vandal. At some point the responsibility for this ongoing damage does shift to the school.
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