Virginia Choice, the mother of Melvin Choice III, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit in the drowning death of her son. Melvin was one of three teens who drowned at an area camp last week when they sneaked out of their cabin and took a paddle boat on the river which then sank. The suit names VisionQuest (the leadership camp the boys were attending), YMCA of McHenry County (who runs Camp Algonquin where the drownings occurred), and North Lawndale College Preparatory High School (the school the boys attended) as defendants. The suit claims "the defendants failed to secure paddle boats or warn that the plugs on the bottom of the boats had been removed." The plug removals were part of the camps winterizing of the boats. more ›

This weekend, Chicago Public Schools head Arne Duncan met with one of the families of the three boys who drowned last week in the Fox River during a leadership camp. Duncan sat down with the family of Jimmy Avant, who drowned attempting to rescue two of his friends whose paddleboat capsized; the boys were partaking in what one sheriff deemed "shenanigans" late last Thursday night when the incident occurred. Avant's mother, Sharon Gowdy, said:

They were all working hard. They all had great dreams…dreams are shattered now. He'll never drive a car. He'll never have a child. He'll never walk across a stage. He'll never go to college...They shouldn't have been allowed to sneak out there -- you know kids will be kids.