Odd Search & Seizure Case from Illinois: Dean Enters Home Looking for Evidence with Mother in Shower

This is one of the odder search and seizure cases I have
seen. The case comes from Illinois. Apparently, a school Dean was looking for
evidence from a previous incident at school. To obtain this evidence, the Dean
had one of his students take him to the student's house and let him in. While
the student's mother was in the shower, the Dean found the knife he was looking
for, took it, and left. All without notifying the student's mother. Here is the
Sun-Times account of the facts:

He was looking for a knife Tyler
D'Allesandro, then 12, said he had inadvertently taken to school in 2006. Tyler
said he doesn't know how the knife from his father's workshop got into his
school bag.

But the Indian Trail Junior High
student noticed it there and pointed it out to his friend. The friend took it,
and then a third boy, whom Tyler did not know, grabbed it and brandished it
toward other students "in a menacing manner," according to a federal
lawsuit the family filed.

Tyler's friend put the knife back in
the school bag. Tyler went home thinking the incident was over. That was on
Friday, Sept. 22, of last year.

But on the following Monday morning,
a parent complained to the school's dean, Michael Brumbaugh. According to the
lawsuit, Brumbaugh drove Tyler home and told Tyler to let him in. Tyler's
mother, Kelly D'Allesandro, was inside taking a shower, and Brumbaugh knew
that, the suit said.

Continued: Here is the URL of the Sun Times Story (sorry, hyperlinking to this
article did not work, copy and paste): http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/548369,CST-NWS-knife09.article




What an odd search on the part of the school Dean. Even with the student's
permission, entering the student's home (even if no one was home) seems clearly
out of line (so much so, I would imagine immunity would be out of the question,
as may indemnity). I know we have zero-tolerance policies against knifes, but
this is over the line. If he wanted that knife that badly, how about calling
the cops and getting a warrant? Or, here is a radical idea, how about calling
the student's parents first and asking them?