Pass The Trash

This from the Los Angeles Times:

It's not clear exactly when the relationship began.

Police were told the girl was 16 when she became intimate with Steve Thomas Rooney. Rooney allegedly met the girl when she was a student in his health class at the Foshay Learning Center.

The relationship continued when Rooney accepted a position last year as assistant principal at Fremont High in South L.A.

Rooney first drew police attention when he allegedly brandished a gun at the girl's stepfather, warning him to treat his daughters better.

When officers arrested Rooney, the school district removed him from Fremont and assigned him to a job away from students at the local district headquarters pending the outcome of the investigation.

He never returned to Fremont, but was placed at Markham Middle School last September.

Rooney, 39, was arrested last week and charged with five counts of forcible lewd acts on a 13-year-old Markham student.

Saying he hadn't "slept well in days," Los Angeles schools Supt. David L. Brewer told parents at Markham Middle School on Thursday that he is investigating "how a policy and system we have in place failed" ...

..."I am deeply, deeply sorry . . . for this incident," Brewer told a gathering of more than 100 parents and students who had come to hear an explanation of why Rooney was transferred to Markham despite the allegations.

Rooney was arrested in early 2007 after allegedly pulling a gun on the Foshay student's stepfather, but police said they did not file charges because the student was by then 18 and refused to cooperate.

Nevertheless, a written district policy makes clear that in cases where law enforcement drops an investigation into a district employee, the school system has "a heightened responsibility for the safety of its students" and should continue to investigate even if police do not file charges.

The mother, grandmother and stepfather of the girl from Foshay said Thursday that the school system never sought them out....