Saturday, May 10, 2014
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ST. LOUIS PARK, Minn. - The family of a student who drowned in a pool at St. Louis Park Middle School has filed a lawsuit against the district and the boy's phys ed teacher.Attorney Fred Priztker confirmed the lawsuit to KARE 11 Friday.
Abdullahi Charif was wrestling with some other students in the pool on February 27 when he apparently fell off a raft and sank to the bottom of the pool. A police report says his gym teacher James Bigot didn't notice the boy was unaccounted for until minutes later, when he pulled the boy from the pool and attempted CPR.
The 12-year-old was rushed to a hospital but died days later. Attorneys for the family allege that "the school district and the teacher responsible for safeguarding this child utterly failed to do so."
Among the claims made by the child's family in the lawsuit are:
• Failure to properly supervise Abdullahi despite knowing he was unable to swim
• Using an IPad while the teacher should have been watching the children in the pool
• Bringing an unapproved and dangerous flotation device and allowing children, including Abdullahi, to roughhouse on it
• Allowing Abdullahi and others to play on the device in the deep end of the pool
• Failure to notice that Abdullahi was on the bottom of the deep end of the pool for several minutes, even after all of the other children had left the pool
• Failure on the part of the school board to have policies and procedures in place that would have prevented this tragic occurrence
The lawsuit claims Bigot was using an iPad and laptop computer instead of watching students. It seeks unspecified damages, and also demands that the St. Louis Park Schools have at least two qualified adults on hand when students are in the pool.
Hennepin County prosecutors declined to file criminal charges in the boy's death.