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After the Evanston Police Department agreed with the Cook County Medical Examiner's decision to rule Aquan's death a suicide, the boy's family continues to ask questions about his death (and seems to be girding itself for a potential lawsuit). At the center of the family's issues are how did Aquan manage to slip away unnoticed for such a length of time? It's an issue the Evanston Police don't seem to have an answer for and Aquan's teacher has been placed on administrative leave as that particular probe continues.
Aquan apparently slipped away from his teacher sometime before 2:40 p.m. -- when the class queued for gym and he was discovered missing -- and 2:57 p.m. -- when students found him in a third-floor bathroom."At this time, we know that he left his classroom and was away from staff supervision for a period of time as short as five minutes and as long as 40 minutes," Hardy said.
Meanwhile, the family's attorny, Todd Smith, admitted that Aquan's was prone to "mood swings" even as the family still came to grips with the ruling.
"Aquan had some mood swings, " Smith said."But you have not told us what happened at school that day that could have triggered this. And you tell us 'as short as five minutes and as long as 40 minutes,' this child was unsupervised. I think it's at the least, negligent, and borders on the reckless."
Previous reports had said that Aquan had threatened to harm himself after being scolded by a teacher that day, but an investigation found that while it's unclear if he made the comment to a teacher, he did make the comments to fellow students.
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This is undeniably a tragic story, and I feel for all those touched by the loss of this boy, but since the family continues to point their fingers elsewhere, prolonging and displacing the anguish that this boy's death causes, I can't help myself from saying this:
This boy was a child, but not an infant -- he was 10 years old -- certainly old enough that he did not need round the clock surveillance. Regardless of what happened at that school (short of someone assisting him in his suicide) it is his fault he's dead, not the school's, not the teacher's and probably not even the family's. So rather than consulting an attorney, go see your pastor/rabbi/shaman and focus on mourning, not blaming!
Wow. Very true, but your guns were ablazing.
The Evanston school district probably has quite a few lawyers on their board of directors to determine the bouyancy of this. A simple weigh scale here would be to see if the cost for a good team of lawyers to fight this outweighs the settlement. Fighting this closes a lot of doors, while settling only opens doors. Either way, it's going to cost the district, and ultimately the taxpayers money. They'd rather see a guaranteed single payout than a potential double payout (lawyer fees and a lost case in court resulting in a settlement).
I hear you. It's a sad outcome either way.
I see this lawsuit as a mother refusing to accept responsibility for her actions which enabled the unfortunately outcome, rather than her trying to get the school district to accept responsibility.
As a society, we have a sort of stair-step program of assigning responsibilty based on age. Like, you can get a job when you're 15, drive when you're 16, vote when you're 18 etc etc. Children are not afforded the same rights as adults and that is because we as a society and our law making bodies have determined that children of a certain age (i.e. kids under the age 13) have very few rights because it is thought that they lack the cognitive awareness to understand consequences.
This is tragic, and it doesn't help to assign blame.
This boy was not in daycare, he was in elementary school. The implication is that not only are schools supposed to teach your children, but they're supposed to raise them and parent them as well.
This is a lose-lose situation because this loss is unexplainable as all suicides are.
I think the lawsuit is a joke, but they will probably win. A child should not go unaccounted for, for such a long period of time. But - considering the mother should have had the most contact with this child - he probably dropped her many hints as well, which she did not take action on - like introducing the child to therapy.
If the child chose to hang himself in a gas station bathroom off campus on his way home from school. Who do you point the finger at then?
Aside from the child, I don't see how anyone can point a finger to anyone else but the parents in this situation.
Please Evanston don't fuck us teachers on this hopefully your teacher had some common sense. If you settle it makes us sit through some mandatory 30 min "professional development" this fall on reporting kids being depressed, and escorting them personally to the bathroom. And oh, probably another paper to send home for students to sign, something along the lines of a litigation checklist update for money grubbing parents.
You're probably right. This kind of lawsuit is why we have "This is not a toy" and "Not for children" on every piece of plastic wrap in existence. Like anyone would purposely give the plastic bag that came wrapped over their dvd player to a baby to play with.
Although, it wouldn't be such a bad idea to implement a buddy system in lower and middle schools so that kids always travel the hallways with a partner.
I just don't see how blaming the teacher or the school makes sense. No teacher in the world is going to be keeping a tally of every single kid in the class for every single minute of the class. That's impossible.
I agree, it is impossible to keep track for every day all day long, but that is what is expected of teachers. When I was a teacher, there was a "zero tolerance" policy on leaving kids alone, meaning you could be fired for the first offense of forgetting a child in the classroom (or something else where the child was left alone). Granted, that was preschool, so it's a slightly different story.
It's certainly not the teacher's fault that the kid committed suicide, but if he was alone/missing for 40 minutes... well, if it's not negligent, it's at the very least quite irresponsible.
WHOOPS, that should say "for every KID all day long." Clearly I should type more carefully.
The point is canceled with the admission that the child had mood swings. The mother clearly knew that her sensitive boy had issues, and her decision was to IGNORE THEM. So, I'd argue that this kid was alone with his mother in the room, with the teacher in the room, with ANYONE in the room. He was clearly asking for help and everyone misjudged (underestimated?) him.
The mother needs to accept her role in all of this - if you're not helping you're enabling.
That's why these attorneys who continue to take lawsuits like this are so dangerous.
The message is out there that you don't have to accept responsibility for anything. You can sue someone and get lots of money.
There should be steps that lawyers have to take to have a case judged whether or not it's lawsuit worthy. I mean, c'mon...everytime someone wins a suit against a tobacco company it makes me so mad. Did Phillip Morris hold your head back and blow smoke into your face?
Those warnings you mentioned are simply an attempt to keep people from erasing themselves from the gene pool and earning a darwin award, and it's unique to this country only. It's easier to think that a toy company is responsible for your child's death than to think "Gee, my kid took that toy apart and tried to eat it piece by piece. What an idiot!"
"I know YOU think you're children are special. I'm just here to tell you that they're not. I have wiped universes off of my stomach with a grey gymn sock." - Bill Hicks.
40 minutes doesn't sound like a huge amount of time. 4 hours, yeah, that's negligent, but 40 minutes is some one-on-one time during math with a few students, then a "hey, where's Aquan?"
I'm on the fence about this. Are Middle Schools similar to H.S. in the sense that every class it taught by a different teacher and you change classes for every subject? I went to a K-8 where you only changed classes for Reading, Math, Library (which was once a week) and Gym, and if a kid that was at school earlier that day didn't show up for one of the "switch" classes someone went out and looked for you straightaway. So yeah, I'm kinda at a loss at how this kid was missing for so long.
Another thing is the...sheer weirdness of it all; who commits suicide at school? I don't blame the family for wanting to look more deeply into this.