EDITOR'S NOTE: The article has been updated to clarify Brooks County ISD's cooperation with the County Attorney's Office.
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ORIGINAL:
Court documents released to KRIS 6 News shed some light on what led to the arrests of two Del Mar College dual-credit instructors teaching at Falfurrias High School.
According to the criminal complaints, surveillance video and a screen shot provided to investigators led to their arrests.
As we've reported, Jose Uribe, 42, and Martin Fonseca, 28, have been arrested and charged with two counts of assault causing bodily injury. Both were released from the Brooks County Jail on $6,000 bond.
Uribe and Fonseca taught welding classes at Falfurrias High School as part of the district's partnership with Del Mar College and the Rural Schools Innovation Zone, also known as R.S.I.Z.
As part of the program, students from Freer ISD, Premont ISD, Agua Dulce ISD, and Benavides CISD are bused to the school to take part in the specialized class.
The criminal complaint stems from an incident that occurred in the campus's agricultural building on September 11 during Uribe's 6th period class.
First victim's story:
According to the first complaint, on Sept. 11, around 4:15 p.m., a student told a security officer that instructor Jose Uribe bit him on his back.
The victim stated that Uribe was searching for his keys and was told that one of the students was hiding them from him.
Uribe refused to release the students from the classroom until he retrieved his keys. That is when Uribe took a pair of needle-nose pliers and began to threaten the students by telling them that he would pinch them if he did not get his keys back.
The boy then claimed Uribe tried to pinch several students, and that is when Fonseca held him against the wall as Uribe went at him with the pliers. He stated Uribe was able to pinch his pants, but really did not get him good on the legs.
He said he tried to push Uribe's hands away and that was when Uribe bit him on his upper left shoulder.
The security guard then took the boy to the nurse's office and, his parents were notified. They took their son to Christus Spohn Hospital in Alice, where the medical staff determined Uribe's bite did not appear to break the skin and the area did not appear to be infected, but they recommended he take medicine for the pain.
Investigators interviewed Fonseca, who admitted to horseplaying with the boy and trying to retrieve a set of keys he had or was holding.
According to the report, another student provided an eyewitness account and a written statement that said he observed Uribe and Fonseca struggling with the boy.
Also, a screenshot was provided that showed both instructors holding the student backing the student's claims.
Second victim's story:
A second student came forward and filed a complaint four days later.
On Sept. 15, a student told the school's assistant principal, Kristina Lopez, that on Sept. 11, Uribe was not allowing students to leave class when it was over because some had hidden his personal keys. The student told Lopez that Uribe then pinched him on his upper left arm in the tricep area, and then Uribe tried to pinch other students. He said when he walked out of class, Uribe pinched him hard on his right butt cheek, causing him a lot of pain.
The victim told the assistant principal that Uribe had been acting weird lately by constantly smacking his a** without consent every time he passed by or as he would try to go into the welding shop.
"(victim)" stated that it made him feel uncomfortable and embarrassed because Mr. Uribe is a grown man, and he is still a minor."
Soon after, investigators reviewed the school's surveillance video and found footage of the victim rushing out of Uribe's classroom. The boy was seen grabbing his injured arm and reaching down to his lower buttocks as if he was in pain, and he was applying pressure to stop the pain.
According to the report, investigators interviewed Uribe, who said he was horseplaying with the boy and was attempting to retrieve a set of keys that the boy had or was holding. He said he knowingly grabbed a needle-nose plier and assaulted the boy by pinching his arm while struggling with them and then pinching him on his buttock.
Conclusion:
In the end, the Brooks County Sheriff's Department decided to charge Uribe with assault.
The report stated Fonseca was charged with assault because "Fonseca participated in the assault by knowingly, intentionally, and recklessly holding the juvenile down."
Further stating:
CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR CONDUCT OF ANOTHER. (a) person is criminally responsible for an offense committed by the conduct of another if:
(2) acting with intent to promote or assist the commission of the offense, he solicits, encourages, directs, aids, or attempts to aid the other person to commit the offense
Other Allegations:
On Wednesday, we spoke with the parents of the two students. The first mother claimed her son was assaulted on Sept. 9 in a school bathroom, where she said Uribe followed her son in. She said her son was using a urinal when the instructor turned off the lights and grabbed her son's genitals from behind.
She said a school resource officer told her Uribe would not face charges for the bathroom incident because there wasn't enough evidence.
The parents of both victim told us their children are in counseling, one of them hadn't fully gone back to school yet, his mother siad he's attended four times this past month.
Meanwhile, Brooks County Sheriff Urbino"Benny" Martinez confirmed his office is investigating three cases.
Brooks County ISD has confirmed the district no longer employs the two instructors.
STATUS OF THE INVESTIGATION
According to County Attorney David T. Garcia, the charges filed against Uribe and Fonseca will be reviewed for possible filing in county court.
An arraignment will be scheduled as part of the legal process. He added that Brooks County ISD initially was not cooperating with his office and refused to turn over the findings of its internal investigation without a subpoena, but they later complied.
Superintendant Scott Rogers said this: "The Brooks County Sheriff’s Office was immediately provided access to district information to allow them to move forward with their independent criminal investigation of this matter. Under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) the school district must maintain the confidentiality of personally identifiable student information and student education records. To ensure compliance, a subpoena for the district’s administrative records was requested. To date, BCISD has not received communication from the County Attorney's office, and no subpoena has been issued."
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