You know what scares me? Two crazy parents. I can handle it when there is just one parent who goes overboard, but when there are two, the children have no chance. Kent Easter and Jill Easter are both lawyers here in Southern California. They are both now facing charges after they were caught trying to frame the PTA president and have her arrested. The couple put pot, and some prescription pills in the back seat of her and called the police. The thing is the tipster gave the police a whole lot of information. Even down to the license plate. The police found the PTA President and questioned her and she said the drugs were not hers.
Credit to the police here. Because most of the time at this point you would already be in a jail cell with everyone else who says the drugs are not theirs. But, the police traced the 911 call and found out where it had come from and then found video and saw that the person who made the call was Kent Easter. he has had a long running feud with the PTA president because she once locked his son out of class when he was 6 and left him outside crying and alone.
So, now the parents of the 8 year old boy face 3 years away from their son if they are convicted. Nice one.
I'm not a parent, thank god, but I can see how they were determined to get her back for the incident. They're just really stupid about they way they did it. Karma works on it's own, people.
ReplyDeleteThey must be fantastic and brilliant attorneys.
ReplyDelete@Beth - my thought exactly!
DeleteAll of the adults in this story parents and the teacher sound like real asses. I really pity that poor little kid. With parents and teachers like that what chance does he have? Maybe he has some sane grandparents or aunts or uncles who can take him in.
ReplyDeleteSo you plant drugs and then you call the police to say drugs were planted in someone's car. I'm confused.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what happened that someone "locked" this kid out of a class. There has to be more to that part of the story.
ReplyDeleteOkay, the parents were wrong but I'm not liking the sound of the PTA president either. I knew someone like that and they really used their position as a weapon. The parents should have changed schools and made sure the school knew why. This is just stupid and the kid will suffer horribly for this and is probably only in second grade. Very sad.
ReplyDeleteTheir poor kid.
ReplyDeleteLuckily, my PTA experience has been nothing like that (and I was on our board two years ago). Small school, less drama.
They must be fantastic and brilliant attorneys.
ReplyDeleteLOL Beth!
Beth, that's what I was thinking. If he was being a real problem and it was the only recourse, then so be it. She had to control her class.
ReplyDeleteThese dumbasses don't deserve to have kids.
Why, for the love of fuck, are parenting classes and psych evals not required to have kids?!
The mom kinda looks like Jocelyn Wildenstein....crazy with botched-plastic-surgery cat face.
ReplyDeleteSomething tells me the kid was being really disruptive and was put outside in the hall - not exactly child abuse.
ReplyDeleteHer eyebrows are pointing at her hair. How rude.
ReplyDeleteMBk, at six years old, a child pushed outside and left crying by himself is probably not a good approach. If he's misbehaving, call the parents. Six? Could she see outside the door? And she locked the door? Third grade and up, I get it but even then the locked door is dumb. But six years old? What would have happened if the six year old had wandered off?
ReplyDeletePeople are crazy...
ReplyDeleteShe has DSLs.
ReplyDeletewhoa talking about trying to get revenge on someone.
ReplyDeleteThe pta lady was wrong, and I'm not excusing the parents here...but until you have kids and someone does something to them man you can go crazy wanting justice.
I just would have kicked her ass for that shit.
Okay, now I really don't like the PTA lady. I just read the article Enty linked to. She didn't kick the six year old out of class. SHE LOCKED HIM OUT OF THE SCHOOL.
ReplyDelete"In March 2010, Kent Easter filed a civil complaint in Orange County Superior Court alleging that his son, then a first-grader, had been in an after-school tennis class the month before when Peters locked the child out of the school for about 19 minutes. A tennis instructor said he had found the child "crying and alone" and trying to open the door to the building, according to Easter's complaint.
When Jill Easter asked Peters why she had left the child outside, the complaint alleged, Peters said the child "takes too long to line up with the other children after class and it is too hard to wait for him."
The school asked the parents not to call the police. After that, the parents say the PTA lady would harass her and say she was unstable. That could be interpreted as, the PTA lady is taking the offensive, saying anything she says is not true. But remember, it was another tennis instructor that found the little boy.
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying the parents are right in what they did. Not a single bit. But I understand their rage. They should have not listened to the school, they should have called the police and still taken the boy from that school because he was never going to be treated well after that even though he was the victim.
@Elizabeth, perhaps the parents should have contacted the police, but they filed a civil suit that was dismissed. The mother filed a restraining order, that was denied. I'm not saying the system is perfect, but it sounds like there was a lot of doubt in the mother's credibility...which considering she helped her husband frame this woman, I can understand
ReplyDelete@Another Josh
ReplyDeleteGood one
In my experience, this issue comes down to very poor leadership at the school. The principal almost 100% drives the ship in the elementary setting. Not sure if the "pta lady" was an employee or a volunteer, but either way, she should have been removed from her position toot sweet after the lock out incident.
ReplyDeleteEither the principal doesn't have the cahones for the job, or she plays favorites, or she's an idiot. And she could be a he, too. When a child-centered atmosphere isn't created by school leadership, you are in for trouble.
Think it goes without saying these parents are idiots, too. We are big proponents of public education, but pulled our kids from a school where the tail was wagging the dog. And thus was after three years of me volunteering there nearly every day. Not trying to sound like a hero, just saying we made an above and beyond effort to make it work.
Kids only get one go round in the educational system. It's on you as a parent to make it right. End rant - maybe :-).
@FSP - that's what my husband would say... LOL
ReplyDeleteThe incident was two years ago and they still harbour that much resentment and anger? They are classic helicopter parents; the kind who hover over their kids and don't let them fall and tell them they are the most special, unique snowflake of them all.
ReplyDeleteCan you imagine how they'd be when that kid starts trying out for team sports and doesn't make the cut?
And I highly doubt they'll see any jail time.
sounds to me like some here are almost sticking up for these parents. sorry, i don't care WHAT the PTA prez did. you handle this in another way---you don't try to get her convicted of a drug crime.
ReplyDeletethat's just insane and negates their whole beef with this woman.
@Frufa
ReplyDeleteGreat rant!!
I am surprised at how many people just automatically assume that the "PTA lady" did what they accused her of. This story is lacking some serious facts here. Oh, other than these parents are nuts jobs. That we can safely assume is a fact.
ReplyDeleteAnd THEY passed the Bar? wtf
ReplyDeleteI am a teacher and if I locked any kid out of the SCHOOL, I would have definitely would have been fired or written up. So, yea, the school environment sounds pretty poor. The parents could have also gone over the principal's head and lodge a complaint with the school board. They should have tried to change schools.
ReplyDeleteWait, how does a PTA president lock a kid out of a classroom? I'm going to look for other sources for this story, this doesn't really add up.
ReplyDeleteI'm with @Frufra on this one. I'm an elementary school teacher, and our principal has a near zero tolerance policy on leaving kids unattended, to the point we don't even step out in the hallway to hand off papers or talk to other teachers anymore. In the past we've had "old school" substitutes leave kids behind or sit them out in the hallway for punishment, and those substitutes are taken off our lists immediately. The liability is just too great with leaving kids alone these days, even accidentally.
ReplyDeleteThat said, pretty much everyone in this story is an idiot in their own special way, and I'm guessing this kind of offense-retaliation behavior is being taught to the kids in their respective idiot families. Poor kiddos.
He's a corporate lawyer.
ReplyDeleteThat explains it.
OK I just read the LA Times article. The lawyer parents who were arrested sound like the biggest crazy assholes in the case. Their civil case was thrown out and their request for a restraining order was rejected. I think they - the mother in particular - are confabulating to a large degree.
ReplyDeleteI vote we put these parents and the PTA president and those horrible little monsters who bullied the lady on the school bus on a very small island with limited supplies and in five or six years anyone left alive can return to society. (Provided they first agree to have vasectomies or tubal ligation.)
ReplyDelete@Frufra- I absolutely agree. However, I think you mean "tout de suite".
ReplyDeleteLittle Miss Smoke and Mirrors, Remember, it wasn't the parents that found the little boy locked out of the school. It was another tennis instructor. How long was the PTA lady going to keep the little boy locked out? Who even does that? The after school director pleaded with the parents not to call the police. So right there, you have two witnesses to testify on the parent's behalf.
ReplyDeleteNow, the civil case was thrown out where the parents asked for a restraining order against the lady because she started going around saying things against the mother. The article doesn't get specific enough there. The problem is, if the parents had called the police the day it happened, things would be very different.
The parents are wrong, but the PTA lady sounds messed up.
I live close to the city these two morons inhabit and with the amount of helicopter parenting that goes on around here this doesn't shock me at all. Plastic people thinking only about themselves is the lay of the land around here.
ReplyDelete@Sunny - thanks, darling! I DID see your comment and then your older comment last night, but sadly I was too tired to type a response. I tried, then accidentally deleted it, then said some curse words and went to sleep! You are my fave Internet sweetheart - are you listening, Agent *I T :-) ?
ReplyDelete@ Lori - thanks for the agreement and the correction - seriously, I didn't know that phrase was all fancy and French and shit. There's some musical (maybe Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) where they sing a song about a candy called "Toot Sweets", so that's what I think of when I hear that phrase.
Trying to pull some Nancy Botwin shit here.
ReplyDeleteI was wondering why they believed the PTA president. None of the cops in my town would have looked farther than the search of the car that disclosed the drugs.
ReplyDeleteInteresting that they did that much leg work on a PCS for this woman.
I don't think these parents are helicopter parents. This lady locked their 6 year old out of his school and left him because he took too long to line up. It was another teacher who found him, crying. As a parent, I would be absolutely livid and would be calling for this lady's job. Her behavior was wrong on so many levels, but the parents are at fault for this idiotic scheme. It's a lose/lose situation all around.
ReplyDeleteI teach in Baltimore and I can totally see a teacher lock a kid out of the class and I could also see the school doing absolutely nothing about it...
ReplyDeletehttp://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/06/irvine-mom-accused-in-drug-plot-wrote-book-about-perfect-crime.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&dlvrit=649324
ReplyDelete@Elizabeth I hear what you're saying, and I'm not saying the PTA president is a good person or did the right thing, but why did did the courts throw out the civil case and not issue the restraining order if this woman is so dangerous.
I'm finding the parents' behavior more reprehensible and, frankly, more frightening. They are running mafia-style revenge on this woman.
@stanleyroaper Word. I live in OC, the helicopter parenting is off the charts, and the kids are turning into little sociopaths because of it. Not saying THIS kid is a sociopath, just that this style of parenting does not lead to responsible functional human grownups.
ReplyDeleteAll we know is that the tennis instructor saw the kid locked outside. In my school, which is ground zero for helicopters and snowflakes, as much power as the PTA president wields, she doesn't have the power to lock the building!
ReplyDeleteGotta side with the PTA pres on this (as in, it never happened) because it just doesn't make sense and the civil case was dropped.
That's not the correct story. I know someone who knows the victim. The victim became PTA president and Jill Easter was extremely jealous of the victim and accused her of receiving that post unfairly. The day that the Easters accused the victim of neglecting her son....that was a set up. During this after school program, Jill Easter told her son to leave the after school program and meet her behind the school. Following this ALL the volunteers looked for her son...frantic. Jill Easter then complained that the victim, specfically, neglected her son. Jill Easter repeated harrassed and slandered the victim for YEARS. She went through HELL.
ReplyDelete@ Unknown - wow. Very interesting information. I have definitely known people capable of such craziness, and really, over the job of PTA president? But I know there's lots of nutjobs out there.
ReplyDeleteYour version of events would explain why these two didn't pull their child out of this school. And why the victim wasn't disciplined/relieved of her duties over the kid getting locked out.
This ought to be an interesting trial. Hope the victim has had some peace now that these two have been arrested. I still stand by my original statement that the school leadership sounds weak as hell.
@unknown I believe you. There's been something off about the story all along, namely that all the info about the PTA prez is coming from Easter and no other source. What about husband Easter, is he nuts, too, or just a slave to his insane wife?
ReplyDelete@Frufra, haha , the room is on me !!
ReplyDeleteWell, the husband was never seen at the school over the years, so Jill Easter must have emotionally wound up her husband. However, that's no excuse for planting drugs. The worst is that the victim's daughter suffered. Parents at this school discouraged their kids to play with her. Other moms stopped socializing with the victim. But what do you expect? The victim was arrested and her car was searched just as parents were arriving to pick up their kids from school. In plain sight if everyone, bags of drugs were pulled out of the back seat of her car and plopped on top of her car.....Irvine parents rubber necking, eyes bugging out, chattering away. The Easters destroyed the victims's and her young daughter's life. All for what? Jealousy! Side note: Jill Easter auditioned to be on The Real Housewifes of Orange County and was rejected. That alone is very telling. Look up Borderline Personality Disorder. I wouldn't be surprised if this is Jill Easter's diagnosis.
ReplyDeletei'm not saying that this pta chick was a teacher, she could have been volunteers... but we trust our children to these people for 33 percent of the day.
ReplyDeleteWe trust them to take care of our children, and help facilitate an education, keep them safe.
Now, I offhandedly know a teacher who would go on all night benders every night with alcohol and vicodin and ambien (got a dui for it), aaaaaand does the bath salts. AND is on probation in two different counties.
People have restraining orders against them (domestic violence, and every statute under that, broken), and they have broken the court order. Also they "attempted suicide", to evade prosecution. oh oh oh, and brings loaded weapons onto school property, unsecured, in an unsecured vehicle!
Just saying, you can't trust anyone.
dammit, adding on to say "allegedly". because i can't really say that because, just like in this case, no charges have ever been filed because the schools are afraid of unions.
ReplyDeleteLocking a 6 year old out of a school by themselves is child endangerment and a betrayal of the trust parents provide the schools and its employees.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, waiting two years to avenge seems a bit nuts.