Great Barrington — The five-month-long saga over the Police Department’s warrantless investigation of a teacher over a copy of “Gender Queer” will now play out in a courtroom. Arantzazú Zuzene Galdós-Shapiro, the teacher investigated in the “Gender Queer” police investigation at W.E.B. Du Bois Regional Middle School, filed a civil rights lawsuit in the United States District Court on Tuesday, May 14.
The lawsuit is over the Police Department’s December 8 investigation in response to an anonymous report that Galdós-Shapiro, an eighth grade ELA teacher at W.E.B. Du Bois Middle School, had a copy of the book “Gender Queer” in her classroom, along with other allegations against her that have subsequently been proven false.
The investigation made national headlines and has continued to impact the Berkshire County community.
Galdós-Shapiro’s attorney, Howard Cooper, a founding partner of Boston’s Todd & Weld LLP, announced the lawsuit to local media in an email on May 14. “Galdós-Shapiro, who serves as advisor to her school’s chapter of the nationally renowned Gender & Sexuality Alliance, alleges in her lawsuit that she was targeted for and subjected to an unwarranted and unlawful criminal investigation based upon an anonymous complaint from a school janitor known to Great Barrington officials to be a disgruntled employee following his being disciplined for homophobic and racist comments,” Cooper wrote in a press release announcing the civil rights lawsuit. “She also alleges that Great Barrington officials knew well and failed to follow the established process for challenging classroom content, and she alleges that these unlawful actions were then followed by the defamatory disclosure by the Great Barrington Police of her name and personal information while linking her to a number of allegations already known to be false suggesting she had engaged in inappropriate activities with students. She alleges that because of the defendants’ unlawful actions she has been threatened and suffered serious and substantial harm which caused her to take a leave from her teaching responsibilities out of fear.”
The complaint and jury demand names the Berkshire Hills Regional School District, Superintendent of Schools Peter Dillon, Police Chief Paul Storti, and investigating Police Officer Joseph O’Brien.
Galdós-Shapiro’s allegations
In the 33-page complaint filed with the United States District Court, Cooper recounts the events leading up to the investigation, the alleged impact that it had on Galdós-Shapiro, and made several allegations against the multiple parties involved in the investigation.
The written complaint filed with the court starts with the beginning of the investigation at the end of the school day on December 8, when Galdós-Shapiro finished teaching for the day, and when school Principal Miles Wheat approached her and directed her to accompany him to her classroom:
Once Galdós-Shapiro and the principal entered her classroom, another individual, who she would momentarily learn was a plainclothes Great Barrington Police Officer Defendant Joseph O’Brien, followed the pair into her empty classroom. Although there was no reason to do so since students had left for the day and the hallway was empty, Officer O’Brien then intentionally shut the classroom door behind him and placed himself between Galdós-Shapiro and the closed door thereby making it clear to her that she could not leave. Officer O’Brien then turned on his body camera and initiated an unlawful interrogation of Galdós-Shapiro and a search of her classroom. Officer O’Brien’s body camera, which [he] partially obscured with his sweatshirt in violation of applicable policy, captured the audio of what happened next.
The footage released by the Police Department shows that O’Brien did cover his bodycam, first with his hand, then with a sweatshirt.
(Bodycam footage courtesy of the Great Barrington Police Department.)
Cooper alleges that “Officer O’Brien made clear to Galdós-Shapiro that he was conducting a criminal investigation of her resulting from her possession of a book in her classroom because the content of the book was, according to him, obscene and illegal, and could not be shown to students.”
In the beginning of the bodycam video released by the Police Department, Officer O’Brien told Galdós-Shapiro that “It’s not the general idea of what the book is about, it’s that you can’t present that kind of material to people under 18.”
“You’re welcome to remove it if you see it,” Galdós-Shapiro told Officer O’Brien.
Galdós-Shapiro told Officer O’Brien that she did not know where the book was. However, in his complaint, Cooper writes, “The book was properly in Galdós-Shapiro’s classroom at all times.”
“It was not and is not obscene or illegal under any applicable legal standard, as was well-known to law enforcement or would have been known upon any meaningful inquiry,” Cooper wrote. “To the extent that anyone believed otherwise, no one had made a complaint about the book by following the readily available and publicized procedure for challenging classroom content.”
Cooper alleges:
Officer O’Brien had no lawful or proper basis to be in the classroom, to interrogate Galdós-Shapiro, or to conduct the search he conducted. But Officer O’Brien went further. In the course of his coercive, custodial communications with Galdós-Shapiro, who could not locate the book in her classroom, he asserted that he had the right to search the entire school for the book, he went through the classroom looking at private materials belonging to students, and he ordered Galdós-Shapiro and the principal to provide the book to him as soon as it was located.
Cooper then cited the Police Department for believing the complaints made by Great Barrington resident Adam Yorke, who worked as a night custodian in the school district, initiated the original complaint to the Police Department, and made the allegations against Galdós-Shapiro.
Yorke is not mentioned by name in the lawsuit filing, but he is identified by name in the school district’s report on the incident. During his interview for the school district’s independent investigation, Yorke recanted his claims. As of February 15, Yorke is no longer employed by the district.
Cooper writes:
As is now known, the sole alleged and legally deficient ‘source’ for any complaint about the book or Galdós-Shapiro was a disgruntled school janitor, whose report was self-evidently incredible and unreliable but as to which the Great Barrington Police Department, decided to afford complete and ongoing acceptance and anonymity. The complainant did not come close to presenting as a qualified or acceptable confidential source. Among other things, the janitor was already known to be legally adverse to the Town of Great Barrington and the district for his unacceptable performance and behavior including his having made homophobic and racist comments. [These are] facts readily available to defendants before they undertook any steps at all before taking their unlawful actions. The complainant made false, obviously outrageous and implausible reports about Galdós-Shapiro supposedly having students sit on her lap, discussing ‘LGBTQ material’ and telling them to keep conversations from their parents, all of which the GBPD themselves had already dismissed as not worth investigating before Officer O’Brien ever entered Galdós-Shapiro’s classroom and before he ever questioned Galdós-Shapiro, as demonstrated by the recorded fact that the sole matter of concern he confronted Galdós Shapiro with was with regard to ‘Gender Queer’ and nothing else.
Cooper goes on to allege that the school district “aided, abetted and conspired with law enforcement to ignore completely existing and established policies governing Ms. Galdós-Shapiro’s rights to be informed of any complaint made against her before she had to answer questions and to have a representative with her when questioned.”
Cooper goes on to allege that the defendants “continued with their unlawful and outrageous conduct” after the December 8 investigation. “They made public Galdós-Shapiro’s name, address, and date of birth in connection with the false allegations about her made by the complainant, allegations which they had already dismissed for lack of veracity,” Cooper writes. “At the same time, they refused to disclose the identity of the complainant despite Galdós-Shapiro, faculty, and students being in fear, feeling threatened, and deeply worried about their safety at school. The District was fully complicit in these acts and omissions, and only even requested the complainant’s name after Galdós-Shapiro demanded that they do so.”
Cooper argues that the town’s, school district’s, and Police Department’s actions “were unlawful, inept, and without any basis in proper and established procedure, or in fact or law”:
The unwarranted criminal investigation and interrogation that they inflicted on Galdós-Shapiro and the resulting aftermath, including defendants’ decision to publish the baseless, false, and defamatory allegations against Ms. Galdós-Shapiro —including the allegation that she was, essentially, a pedophile —left her devastated and profoundly shaken, ill, distressed, and fearful, her reputation publicly destroyed. Unable to return to the classroom, and in fear about what unknown person or persons had falsely started the attack upon her which defendants then carried out, Galdós-Shapiro was forced to take an extended leave of absence from her job.
At a Berkshire Hills Regional School District committee meeting on February 29, however, Middle School Principal Wheat announced that Galdós-Shapiro would be returning to her job.
Cooper alleges, “Defendants’ blatant violations of Galdós-Shapiro’s rights under federal and Massachusetts law, the conspiracy they entered into with each other to deny Galdós-Shapiro her rights, and their subsequent defamation of her, has caused her serious and ongoing harm for which she now seeks monetary and other relief.”
Cooper alleges town’s independent investigation is a “sham”
Further on in the complaint, Cooper addresses the Selectboard-commissioned independent review of the Police Department’s handling of the incident. The independent review was conducted by Comprehensive Investigations and Consulting LLC out of Quincy, and the results of the review were released to the public on April 29.
“Comprehensive Investigations and Consulting, LLC, finds that the actions of Officer Joseph O’Brien, as well as the actions of the Great Barrington Police Department, regarding the incident at the W.E.B. Du Bois Middle School, on December 8, 2023, were lawful and proper,” the company states in its report. Right next to the statement, the word “exonerated” is typed up in all capital and bold letters.
“The report is a sham,” Cooper alleges in his complaint. “In [the report], CIC outlined the cursory nature of its so-called investigation. For example, despite memorializing that the GBPD admittedly only had three photographs of excerpts from the book ‘Gender Queer’ before launching its criminal investigation, and that the ‘illustrations were concerning because there was no context provided[,]’ leading Chief Storti to determine that the GBPD needed to investigate the Criminal Complaint, it did not address Defendants’ decision to push an investigation before gaining necessary context. CIC failed to address at all the voluminous further information that was readily available with a Google search had the GBPD, Chief Storti, or Officer O’Brien taken a few minutes to research the book, through which they would have learned that there could be no basis for an investigation by law enforcement.”
Cooper goes on to claim that, with the “exonerated” declaration in the report, “The GBPD further defamed Ms. Galdós-Shapiro and retaliated against her.”
Cooper alleges rights, including First Amendment rights, have been violated
Cooper alleges that, as a result of the investigation and what subsequently happened to Galdós-Shapiro, her First, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights were all violated by the town, school district, and Police Department:
The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech in the classroom. At no time did the district ban the book ‘Gender Queer’ or determine that it contains obscene material. Prior to December 8, 2023, numerous school districts had in fact reviewed the book to determine whether it was appropriate for the classroom and determined that it was appropriate to remain in the classroom. Nonetheless, Defendants detained and interrogated Galdós-Shapiro and searched her classroom without basis threatened to conduct a broader search, and ordered Galdós-Shapiro to do so herself, all because of the false allegation that she had the book (despite her repeated assertions that it was not in her classroom). When Officer O’Brien was unable to find ‘Gender Queer’, he ordered Galdós-Shapiro to locate the book and turn it in to Principal Wheat. Officer O’Brien further ordered Galdós-Shapiro to remove any other books from her classroom with similar themes. ‘Gender Queer’ is an award-winning memoir that cannot be considered obscene.
In the request for relief, Cooper does not ask for a monetary amount, but asks for compensatory and punitive damages, along with attorneys’ fees. Cooper also requests a jury trial.
Neither Selectboard and Berkshire Hills Regional School District Chair Steve Bannon nor Police Chief Storti would provide comment for this story. Dillon is out on medical leave and was not available for comment.
