From WSOC-TV: The family of a 17-year-old Charlotte student says a simple phone call from her school might have kept her from being raped. "When she came home, she was shaking real bad and she was crying," the girl's aunt told Eyewitness News.She said her niece and other students who ride one of Kennedy Charter School's three buses were told just before school let out that their bus had a flat tire, and they would have to ride public transportation home.
But she said no one called parents or other family members to let them know first.
"They didn't call to let us know they were going to send her home on the light rail or ask us to come pick her up," the aunt said.
As a result, the girl and several classmates from Kennedy Charter took the light rail into uptown Charlotte. The girl told police that one of those classmates, 16-year-old Maurice Hunter, attacked her when she got off the train and forced her into a nearby office building where he raped her.
Police arrested Hunter early Thursday and charged him with kidnapping and rape.
Kennedy Charter School officials said they're conducting an internal investigation on the decision to send students home on public transportation, thus they aren't commenting on the case.
But the girl's aunt said they clearly didn't do what they needed to do. "From the time a student gets on the bus early in the morning, till the time that they leave and get to their final destination, they should be responsible for the students -- and my niece didn't get home safely," she said.