Texas student tased by police exits coma, enters rehabilitation, attorney says
February 2, 2014 -- Updated 1746 GMT (0146 HKT)
Noe Nino de Rivera, 17, suffered permanent brain injury after police tased him in a school hallway, a lawsuit says.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Noe Nino de Rivera was tased after trying to break up school fight, court documents say
- Teen was placed into medically induced coma for 52 days, entered rehab facility Friday
- Family files suit against officer who tased him, is calling for end to Taser use in schools
- Police union director tells CNN affiliate teen was coherent, apologizing after incident
Noe Nino de Rivera was
transported to the hospital on November 20 after Bastrop County
Sheriff's Deputy Randy McMillan, serving as a school resource officer,
used the device on him after the teen tried to defuse a school fight
involving two girls, one of them his girlfriend, said attorney Adam
Loewy.
The parents have filed a
lawsuit alleging their son never posed a threat to the deputy and that
Nino de Rivera suffered a permanent brain injury when he hit the ground
after McMillan tased the teen.
The family is also asking
the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement to outlaw the devices, along
with pepper spray, on state campuses.
Several civil liberties
groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, sent a letter to
the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement last month calling the use of
such weapons on children "unconscionable."
"Texas families deserve
to send their children to school without fear, knowing they can trust
their schools to be safe havens," the letter said.
A jumpy surveillance
video provided by Loewy shows Nino de Rivera amid a commotion in the
hallway of Cedar Creek High School, about 20 miles southeast of Austin.
The teen appears to be stepping backward, away from the officer, when he
is hit with the stun gun and falls to the floor.
"As a result of being
tased, NDR fell to the ground, striking his head on the floor. While NDR
was unconscious, defendant McMillan placed him in handcuffs," the
family's lawsuit says.
School officials did not
immediately call paramedics, the lawsuit says. When they did, Nino de
Rivera was taken to a local hospital and later airlifted to St. David's
Medical Center in nearby Austin, where he "underwent surgery to repair a
severe brain hemorrhage and was placed in a medically induced coma,"
court documents say.
The lawsuit claims
McMillan used excessive force and that Nino de Rivera "posed no imminent
threat of death or serious injury to McMIllan." It asks for
compensatory damages and attorney's fees and expert's fees, among other
relief.
Cynthia Ramirez of the
Bastrop County Sheriff's Office said the department could not comment
because of the pending litigation, but a court document from the
county's attorneys alleged that Nino de Rivera "failed to comply with
the lawful orders of Deputy McMillan and therefore Deputy McMillan used
the reasonable amount of necessary force to maintain and control
discipline at the school."
"The actions of Deputy McMillan were the actions of a reasonable officer," the court documents say.
Kevin Lawrence,
executive director of the Texas Municipal Police Association, defended
McMillan's use of a Taser in an interview with CNN affiliate KXAN, saying Nino de Rivera appeared coherent after the incident and apologized to the officers.
"He was saying 'I
shouldn't have done that,' " Lawrence said. "When they got him to the
hospital, he again got out of control and became aggressive to hospital
personnel to the point they called the sheriff's office again and said,
'We need help over here.' "
Loewy called Lawrence's
account "100% false" and "complete nonsense." The lawyer further noted
that doctors at St. David's Emergency Center-Bastrop quickly sedated the
teen before having him airlifted to the Austin hospital.
"The video speaks for
itself. (Nino de Rivera) was not acting aggressively," the attorney
said. "The deputies were very aggressive in coming up to this situation.
I think this officer made up his mind to go to Taser very quickly."
"He never struck the police officer. He never disobeyed instructions," Loewy added.
Deborah Fowler, legal
director for Texas Appleseed, a group that fights for social and
economic justice in Texas -- and a signatory to the ACLU letter calling
for a Taser ban in schools -- said there is no state or national data on
how frequently Tasers are deployed on students.
The letter to the Texas
Commission on Law Enforcement cites more than a dozen media reports on
officers who used Tasers or pepper spray on students, and Fowler cited
high-profile cases in Wake County, North Carolina, and Syracuse, New
York, but said she suspects such media reports are "just the tip of the
iceberg."
Texas Appleseed would be
open to discussing with law enforcement how best to use the devices
when a student has a gun or other weapon, she said, "but that's not how
it's being used, for the most part."
The Texas juvenile
justice system doesn't allow Tasers, and it has specific limitations on
when to use pepper spray, so Fowler said she doesn't understand how the
state can condone the use of such devices in places of learning.
"There are other methods of de-escalating fights that wouldn't pose the same risk," she said.
0 التعليقات:
إرسال تعليق