When Jennifer Schutter and Ed Hernandez’s child PJ came home from school one day in fall 2020, his hand was swollen. PJ, an elementary student in the Carroll Independent School District, is autistic, legally blind and has motor and speech delays. Schutter said PJ is basically nonverbal, so he couldn’t articulate what happened to his hand.
His parents took PJ to the hospital, where an X-ray revealed he had two broken fingers. A report of the incident from the school signed by the principal said there was no evidence the injury happened at school, but the Southlake Police Department came to a different conclusion.
One of the school’s resource officers, who works for the Southlake police, reviewed footage from a hallway camera and wrote up what they saw. According to the officer, PJ might have smashed his hand between his walker and a metal door at school.
The family filed