Attorney For Aquan's Family: School "Negligent"

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Feb 18, 2009 8:30PM

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.