A Philadelphia elementary school teacher has been arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a young family member over the course of several years.
Police say 39-year-old Sumo Dukulah, a 7th and 8th grade teacher at the Leslie P. Hill Elementary School located at 3133 Ridge Avenue in Strawberry Mansion, repeatedly raped the child over the course of eight years.
Investigators say the assaults began when the child was 8 years old and continued until the child was 16.
Parents say Dukulah had been teaching at the school for about a year.
"Who knows if he had the opportunity if he would have done something like that to a child that's in the school. Thank God it wasn't but it should not have been any child at all," Andrea Mitchell, a parent.
Dukulah, who was arrested Thursday, is facing a number of charges including rape, involuntary deviant sexual intercourse, and aggravated indecent assault. He was arraigned overnight and bail was set at $500,000. He was also ordered to surrender his passport, according to investigators.
The School District says Dukulah will be relocated and will not be able to work in any teaching capacity with children while the charges are pending.
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But parents say they are not satisfied because they did not receive any notification from the school about the arrest.
"I should not have found out about it on the news, said Selene McQueen. “Having children at that attend that school they can call for any other thing and they should have called about this - a mass text, alert, something should have been sent out about this."
Anyone with information in the case is asked to contact the Philadelphia Special Victims Unit at 215-685-3251.
