A federal jury in New Orleans is deciding whether Jefferson Parish sheriff's deputies violated the rights of a 10-year-old student with a behavior disorder when they handcuffed him and placed him in a chokehold during a 2021 incident at his elementary school. The trial, which began the week before publication, centers on a confrontation that started when the boy struck his school's principal and has since become a federal civil-rights case testing how schools and law enforcement handle children with disabilities.
What Happened at Congetta Trippe Janet Elementary
According to the lawsuit, the boy, identified in court filings as J.H., punched Congetta Trippe Janet Elementary School principal Karen Doyle in the jaw in May 2021, then ran out of her office and threw a trash can at a school window. Four deputies arrived at the school, and the lawsuit alleges that Sgt. Steven Trapani put the boy in a chokehold before deputies cuffed his hands behind his back, according to the lawsuit. As reported by NOLA.com, a jury of seven is now weighing those allegations in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
The lawsuit further alleges that deputies questioned the boy alone in a room for 90 minutes while administrators made his parents wait outside the school. Those same 90 minutes of isolated questioning are also described in the amended complaint reviewed by the Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse, which states that an officer placed the child in a chokehold and pulled him to the ground before he was dragged away and handcuffed. The Clearinghouse's case record also notes that the boy was released to his parents four hours after being taken to juvenile detention and that the charges against him were ultimately dismissed.
Conflicting Accounts of the Boy's Size and the Force Used
Court filings and news reports differ on basic details of the boy's size at the time of the encounter. NOLA.com reported he stood 4 feet 11 inches tall, while TheGrio's 2022 account put him at 4 feet 5 inches and 95 pounds; a separate NOLA.com report from that year described him as a 93-pound fifth-grader. Jurors were shown video of the incident on Monday, though the family's attorneys said the footage does not show what happened next, per the same NOLA.com account.
The Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office has described the encounter differently than the family does. According to the Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse, the sheriff's office characterized the incident as a “brief struggle” and said officers used reasonable force to overcome the child's resistance, while also disputing that officers knew the child had a disability. The school board and sheriff's office argue that staffers and law enforcement acted appropriately, and the school board denies all the allegations, per court documents.
Diagnoses, Representation, and What the Family Wants
The boy has diagnoses of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and oppositional defiant disorder, and his family argues that school employees failed to adequately de-escalate the situation and that officers used unnecessary force on him. His parents, Terry Harper and Ashley Hutchinson Harper, sued the Jefferson Parish School Board and the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office in 2022, formally filing Hutchinson-Harper v. Jefferson Parish School Board on May 9 of that year, according to the Clearinghouse. The lawsuit alleges violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Louisiana Constitution, and Louisiana common law, the same filing shows.
The family is represented by attorneys from the Tulane law clinic and the Louisiana ACLU. They are seeking damages, an injunction prohibiting physical restraints on schoolchildren whose behaviors manifest their disabilities, and an order compelling the defendants to revise their policies, practices and training. The lawsuit also contends that the boy continues to suffer significant distress from the trauma of the incident.
Broader Patterns in School Discipline
The family argues the incident highlights disparities in school discipline, pointing to Jefferson Parish data from 2018 showing Black students with disabilities were referred to law enforcement at a disproportionately high rate. The boy is Black. A federal civil-rights complaint filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center on May 17, 2012, said students with disabilities accounted for 52 percent of referrals to alternative schools in Jefferson Parish while representing just 11 percent of district enrollment, and that Black students made up 78 percent of those referrals despite being 46 percent of the student population, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The same report found students with disabilities averaged 223.9 days in alternative school, compared with 94.5 days for students without disabilities, and noted the organization had filed a federal civil-rights complaint over the district's policies.
Louisiana tightened restrictions in 2025 on the restraint of students with disabilities and their placement in seclusion. A December 2024 Louisiana Legislative Auditor report titled “Seclusion, Restraint, and Abuse/Mistreatment of Children With Disabilities In Public Schools” examined the state's oversight of these practices.
What the Jury Must Decide
Jurors are expected to decide whether sheriff's deputies violated the boy's rights by putting him in a chokehold and arresting him, and whether school district employees violated his rights under federal disability law and state law. They must also weigh whether school employees should have used de-escalation techniques suited to the boy's physical and emotional needs rather than calling 911, per the NOLA.com report.
Jefferson Parish Schools spokesperson Kaela Lewis said the district does not comment on pending litigation. Representatives of the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office did not return a request for comment, and attorney Olden Toups declined to comment on the claims Monday.
