Makiya Bradsher was sitting in her classroom at Cummings High School in October 2022, when she was brutally and repeatedly stabbed by another student, Meyka Haith-Herbin, whom Bradsher claims became obsessed with her, continuously asked her to be her friend, and reacted violently when she failed to reciprocate.
“Anything you want to say to me? Do you want to fight me?” Bradsher claims her alleged attacker, Haith-Herbin, shouted at her while she waited for her first-period English class to begin the morning of October 11, 2022.
Haith-Herbin pulled a knife, stabbing Bradsher nine times in the head, face, and chest, leaving her with lacerations that required four staples in her head and three stitches near her temple.
Before that morning, Bradsher had been a “thriving 17-year-old high school student” at Cummings – where she was involved in school and extracurricular activities and was nominated to the homecoming court that fall – but didn’t return to school for months and has never been the same, according to the lawsuit she later filed against the school board and her former English teacher at the high school.
Haith-Herbin was allegedly known to have a history of violence and a criminal history when she enrolled at Cummings in August 2022, but the ABSS administration, school board, and Cummings staff did nothing to identify and address the threats of violence she “obviously posed,” Bradsher claims in her lawsuit.
Bradsher originally filed her suit in federal court, claiming that her teacher and the school board had been negligent in failing to address the potential for violence, given Haith-Herbin’s alleged criminal history; failing to intervene once the stabbing began; and failing to enforce ABSS policies that govern student discipline and school violence.
U.S. District Court judge Thomas D. Schroeder granted motions by the school board and Cope to dismiss the original suit from the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina in September 2024.
Specifically, federal judge dismissed three of Bradsher’s claims that the defendants had: violated her due process rights under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; violated her constitutional right to an education; and failed to train staff on how to identify and address threats of violence at school. Schroeder declined to take up the remaining “state” claims outlined in Bradsher’s federal suit.
Bradsher re-filed her suit in Alamance County civil superior court in December 2025, outlining many of the same claims as she had in her earlier federal suit.
On Monday morning, Alamance County superior court judge C. Douglas Green heard arguments on a motion by the school board to dismiss the case.
ABSS is asking for the lawsuit to be dismissed, arguing that it hasn’t waived its immunity to lawsuits seeking compensatory damages for negligence and other alleged claims through the purchase of liability insurance. State law usually (but not always) protects state and local governments, including public officials and public-sector personnel, from being sued for financial compensation for acts that occur while carrying out their official duties.
Now 21 and a Burlington resident, Bradsher contends in her suit that ABSS participates in the North Carolina School Boards Trust (NCSBT), a risk management pool that covers certain defense costs and claims for damages, and has also purchased “excess liability insurance coverage” from the Safety National Casualty Corporation for claims between $150,000 and $2.55 million, according to her suit.
“Upon entering Cummings, Haith-Herbin immediately began to focus her attention on [Bradsher], continuously asking to be her friend,” Bradsher alleges in her Alamance County complaint. “[Bradsher] repeatedly declined these requests, as she was aware of Haith-Herbin’s criminal and violent history.”
Haith-Herbin’s obsession with her and the potential threat she posed “should have been known to the administration, staff, and teachers at Cummings,” Bradsher alleges.
“There were numerous opportunities – both during and leading up to the incident – for Cope to have either stopped Haith-Herbin’s assault or prevented it entirely, [but the teacher] “willfully chose not to act,” Bradsher alleges in her Alamance County suit.
Bradsher claims Cope did nothing to prevent the attack, or to intervene once Haith-Herbin began repeatedly stabbing her in Cope’s classroom that morning in October 2022. She continues to suffer physical, emotional, and financial losses, as well as scars, disfigurement, permanent injury, and ongoing medical expenses related to the attack, according to her suit.
Teacher allegedly chose not to intervene
Bradsher contends that Cope, who was in the classroom at the time of the stabbing, stood by and “consciously chose not to intervene” to stop the attack. The former Cummings student points to several ABSS policies, under which she claims that Cope had a responsibility to prevent harm to her students “while in the care and custody of the school system” and to use appropriate behavior management techniques to restore order to her classroom.
In her response to the suit, Cope acknowledges that duty, without elaborating on what she had been doing while the attack was underway. “To the extent that [the] Plaintiff misstates, misconstrues, or improperly expands those duties, those allegations are denied,” Cope counters in her response.
In a response she filed to the suit this spring, Cope denied Bradsher’s description that watched the “brutal assault” while it played out and allowed it to continue without “verbal commands, physical intervention, any attempt to separate the students” and never contacted the administration or school resource officer. The Cummings High School teacher offers no elaboration on what she was doing while the stabbing was in progress.
Cope claims that Bradsher was actually fighting with Haith-Herbin when she was stabbed but otherwise denies that she was negligent in her handling of the situation, based on the response she filed in civil superior court this spring. She also denies that her actions or lack thereof were the cause of Bradsher’s injuries from the stabbing.
For her defense, Cope contends that she was carrying out her official duties at the time of the stabbing and that Bradsher’s claims for punitive damages against her are barred by the doctrine of public official and governmental immunity.
Cope is being represented by the Cranfill Sumner law firm in Charlotte. She was hired by ABSS in August 2002 and remains employed as an English teacher at Cummings High School; her annual salary was $68,373.05 as of last year, according to information that ABSS previously furnished to The Alamance News. The court file identifies Cope as a resident of Graham.
Alleged negligence by school board
Bradsher claims that the school board was negligent by: failing to enact any policy requiring staff to report “concerning student conduct”; failing to adequately train staff to identify the potential for school violence; review internal reports to identify potential threats of violence at school and failing to consult with security professionals to determine the need for monitoring Haith-Herbin, whom she alleges was known to be “dangerous and violent”; failing to train staff on supervising students with criminal or violent histories; failing to enforce its own prohibition against students coming to school with weapons; and in other ways that will be disclosed during the discovery phase of the lawsuit.
The plaintiff is requesting a jury trial and more than $25,000 in individual and joint punitive damages against the school board and Cope under each of five “counts” (alleged claims for relief), as well as recovery of her costs for filing the action and interests.
Bradsher further alleges that the school board ultimately deprived her of her state constitutional right to an education by fostering “a dangerous educational environment at Cummings,” her complaint states.
“No doubt that’s a tragedy,” the school board’s attorney, David Noland of the Tharrington Smith law firm in Raleigh, told Green Monday morning. “The question today is, what is the liability of the defendant [school board]?”
Noland asserted that, while the NCSBT trust agreement does provide coverage for claims such as negligent hiring and training of school personnel, the same agreement excludes coverage for claims arising out of any alleged criminal action.
ABSS is a public school system and is still required to serve students who may be known to have a history of violence, Noland added. “I don’t think we have that . . . some sort of foreseeability” [to warn a student about the potential for violence by another student], the attorney said. “It doesn’t mean they’re set aside; we can’t put them in a bubble,” he said Monday,
“The school board – any school board – they have to set policies that, if there is a troubled student, here are the procedures we do, correct?” Green asked Noland. “And if they failed to do that, is that not a constitutional violation?” At the same time, the judge acknowledged, “A violation of a policy does not necessarily translate into a constitutional violation.”
Meanwhile, Bradsher’s attorney, Alison E. Smith of the Edwards Beightol law firm in Raleigh, told Green Monday morning that the school board’s motion to dismiss should be denied because ABSS has, in fact, purchased excess liability insurance, and the board knew or should’ve known the potential threat that the alleged perpetrator posed.
Given where the case is procedurally, which Smith termed a “Rule 12” hearing under the state’s Rules of Civil Procedure, Smith countered that, at this stage, the court must accept as true all of the factual allegations in her client’s complaint.
Smith contended that a 2020 case that the Coastal Conservation Association (CCA) brought against the state – over its alleged “abject failure” to properly manage coastal fisheries, which is still pending in Wake County – demonstrates that “governmental immunity will not stand as a barrier” to litigation arising out of willful negligence or other actionable claims. (Final arguments in the case were heard earlier this year, and it was expected to be months before a ruling is issued, according to the CCA).
The board had “months of actual knowledge of that other student’s violence and that other student’s growing obsession with my client,” Smith told Green, referring to the alleged attacker, Haith-Herbin. “The board had months to enact a policy, to enforce an existing policy, to do something,” she said.
North Carolina courts “have determined that insurance policies are to be construed in a manner that” confers, rather than takes away, coverage, Smith said in arguing against the school board’s motion to dismiss Monday morning. “The court is not being asked to interpret coverage,” Smith insisted.
At the conclusion of oral arguments, Green told the attorneys for Bradsher and the school board that he would review the arguments and issue a written order on the school board’s motion to dismiss later this week.
