MARYSVILLE — A substitute teacher insists she can’t be held responsible for the shootings at Marysville Pilchuck High School in 2014 because she tried to warn the school district — even though she later told detectives her own memory can’t be trusted whether she received any warning at all.
Rosemarie Cooper has asked a judge to dismiss her as a defendant in a civil lawsuit filed on behalf of the families of the shooting victims. Among other things, her attorneys cite a state law that gives school districts and their employees immunity from liability if they make a good faith effort to report threats of violence.
The case likely will focus on Cooper’s credibility and her claims that she was told about the shootings days prior by a student, and that she warned others before leaving for the day.
Cooper’s account has been discredited by detectives, who found no evidence to support her story, even after searching through the school’s trash for the note she claims to have left and tracking down the boy she claimed tipped her off.
When confronted with what investigators found, Cooper told them she “can’t be sure” that she actually received a warning, and perhaps was confused from watching so much TV coverage about the killings, records show.
The Oct. 24, 2014, shootings took the lives of four high schoolers and injured a fifth. The 15-year-old shooter also killed himself.
The victims’ families filed a lawsuit earlier this year against the Marysville School District, Cooper and the shooter’s father, Raymond Fryberg. The district denied a $110 million damage claim filed in January.
The trial recently was scheduled for October 2017.
Also filed recently was Cooper’s claims that she can’t be held negligent because she tried to warn district officials. If she can demonstrate that is true, state law is clear that she would be immune from liability.
Cooper’s memory apparently continues to be spotty, however.
In the same pleadings, Cooper’s attorneys acknowledged that about a year after the shootings she told a TV reporter that she had been warned about the impending violence by a “young man,” and that when she met with detectives later “they just didn’t want to hear the truth.” The pleadings also say she “does not have a recollection” of being interviewed by The Associated Press about going to the office to report the alleged warning.
The Marysville School District has agreed to cover Cooper’s legal expenses, in keeping with state law. That’s different than endorsing her version of what happened.
When the damage claims were filed, Pat Buchanan, an attorney representing the district, wrote that the plaintiffs’ lawyers were misplacing blame.
“Contrary to your assertions, there simply is no evidence the district knew or should have known that Jaylen Fryberg, or any other student, would engage in a shooting at Marysville Pilchuck High School on Oct. 24, 2014,” she wrote.
The lawsuit was filed in Snohomish County Superior Court by Julie Kays and Lincoln Beauregard, attorneys with Connelly Law Offices in Tacoma.
In court papers they contend Cooper’s story likely varied because she felt guilty for not properly reporting the supposed tip.
Cooper’s warning story figured into the Snohomish County Multiple Agency Response Team investigation of the shootings. The team of seasoned detectives pulled from police departments around the county was tapped to determine what happened.
Cooper’s claims that she warned the school reached detectives indirectly. She spoke about the warning with an acquaintance at a church group dinner. That person, who was substituting in the front office at Marysville Middle School, repeated to staff members there what she’d heard. District officials notified SMART team members.
Detectives interviewed school staff, including people from the front office, and the student who Cooper said had approached her two days before the violence.
Cooper reportedly claimed Marysville Pilchuck students were “whooping and hollering” in class over what she thought were messages on their smartphones. She said one boy approached her and said there was going to be a shooting at the school.
That student denied warning Cooper about the shootings. Instead, he told detectives that he’d apologized to the substitute teacher for how rowdy the class had been that day, and for classmates making fun of her by sharing altered photos of her on their phones.
The families bringing the lawsuit are those of Andrew Fryberg, Zoe Galasso, Gia Soriano and Shaylee Chuckulnaskit, who were killed, and Nate Hatch, who survived a gunshot to the jaw. Jaylen Fryberg took his own life after killing his friends in a cafeteria at the high school.
The suit also names as a defendant Raymond Fryberg, Jaylen’s father and the owner of the gun that was used. He was convicted in September of illegally possessing multiple firearms, including the gun used at the high school. Raymond Fryberg was the subject of a 2002 protection order in Tulalip Tribal Court that forbade him from owning guns.
In February, Fryberg began his sentence at the Lompoc Federal Correctional Institution, a low-security prison in southern California. His expected release date is Nov. 11, 2017.
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