The family of a teen student in Indiana who took his own life after being arrested and expelled from school for possessing a marijuana vape pen is now suing both the school and the sheriff’s office.
Jase Emily, 15 was caught with a vape pen that contained marijuana at Charlestown High School in May. Emily was subsequently arrested at his school, expelled and suspended from the school’s football team.
“Jase told us he was handcuffed and shackled. I can only imagine as a kid that cared so much for others to know that … happened to him, and people could see that,” the teen’s mom, Elyce Emily, told local news station WHAS11.
Three days later Emily killed himself.
His family is arguing in their lawsuit that Emily’s punishment was far too harsh, and that he was wrongfully arrested and detained.
“Finding out he wasn’t going to be able to play [football] the next year it was rough for him,” Elyce Emily recounted. “It didn’t hit us of what that might do to him until after he was gone.”
A tort claim filed against the school and the Clark County Sheriff’s Office by the family charges that the teen’s constitutional rights were violated by authorities the day of his arrest.
“We don’t believe they had probable cause to check his locker,” Gordon Ingle, the Emily family’s attorney, told WHAS11.
“They did a criminal investigation and they talked to him, which is a violation of the law because before you…
