Mother intends to file lawsuit against Detroit school district after alleged beating, choking of her son
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DETROIT, Michigan (WWJ) — A Northwestern High School parent intends to file a lawsuit following what she says was the assault on her 17-year-old son.
The incident comes after an argument escalated to the point of fighting, where video shows a security guard allegedly pinning the student to the ground. The family is now intending to sue for $1 million.
“You never would think that something like that would happen to your child,” said Ashley Johnson, the mother of the 17-year-old student. “It honestly brought tears to my eyes because you can hear my son gasping for air, you know, and no mother wants to experience that.”
Johnson is filing the lawsuit against the Detroit Public Schools Community District, accusing the district of negligence, assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress and more.
“I ain’t really the type of kid like that. That’s always been in the mix, so like everything would’ve been normal to me. I’m fine,” said the 17-year-old student, who spoke to the press Tuesday afternoon but remains unidentified.
He says he had a brief encounter with the security guard that he thought was resolved after a fist bump. It then escalated after what the 17-year-old says were threatening words from the guard.
Both he and his mother say they are fortunate the incident resulted in only minor injuries. They both said they don’t want a possibly worse outcome for someone else if something like this were to happen in the future.
“I feel like they should do more than what they are doing because I don’t want it to happen to anybody else. Somebody else may not be that fortunate to make it past a situation like that,” says Johnson.
CBS News Detroit has reached out to the school district. At this time, we haven’t heard anything back.
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