The mother of a victim in the 2017 Aztec High School shooting has sued the school district and superintendent over sexual abuse accusations.
Jamie Lattin, mother of the 17-year-old Casey Marquez, filed a lawsuit in the state district court Monday, alleging negligence against the Aztec Municipal School District Board of Education and Superintendent Kirk Carpenter, The Farmington Daily Times originally reported.
Carpenter told The Durango Herald the school district had not officially been served legal papers as of Friday afternoon. “There’s not much we can say right now,” he said.
New Mexico State Police investigated James Coulter in June 2018 after the Public Education Department looked into whether the Aztec teacher had an illegal sexual relationship with at least one female student. In the original investigation, Coulter admitted to additional sexual contact with several other female students at Aztec High School.
Lattin’s lawsuit says the school district and Carpenter were negligent in ensuring students’ safety from sexual predation. It also says Coulter messaged Marquez inappropriate and “sexualized” content, which came to light when New Mexico State Police released Marquez’s phone to her mother in 2018. The former teacher is currently incarcerated at the San Juan County Adult Detention Center awaiting trial on several felony counts of criminal sexual contact.
Aztec school board President Roger Collins could not be reached for comment Friday.
Marquez and fellow student Francisco Fernandez were killed in the shooting at Aztec High School on Dec. 7, 2017, when a gunman entered the school.
lweber@durangoherald.com