A lawsuit
is being filed Monday in the death
of Cornelius Fredericks, 16, an
African American teenager who died
after he was wrongfully restrained
at the Lakeside Academy in
Kalamazoo, a center for behavioral
issues, on April 29. A staffer
placed their weight on his chest for
nearly 10 minutes as he pleaded, 'I
can’t breathe' until he became
unresponsive. He died two days
later.
Video
shows
facility
staff
restraining
Black
teen who
died
By
COREY
WILLIAMS
apnews.com
At
least
seven
men
forcibly
restrained
a
teenager
who had
a heart
attack
and died
two days
later.
The
staffers
at a
youth
facility
in
Michigan
held
down the
boy’s
arms and
legs and
sat on
him as
he
screamed
that he
couldn’t
breathe,
an
attorney
representing
the
boy’s
estate
said
Tuesday.
Surveillance
video
footage
from the
Lakeside
Academy
in
Kalamazoo
shows
16-year-old
Cornelius
Fredericks
being
pushed
to the
floor
and held
down by
staff
members
because
he threw
a
sandwich
in the
cafeteria.
About a
dozen
teenagers
can be
seen
sitting
in the
cafeteria
at the
time.
The
video
was
released
Tuesday
by
Detroit-area
attorney
Geoffrey
Fieger,
who
represents
Fredericks’
estate.
A civil
lawsuit
filed by
the
estate
in June
says the
boy
screamed
“I can’t
breathe”
on April
29 as he
was
restrained
for what
appeared
to be
about 12
minutes
on video
released
by the
state
late
Tuesday.
On
the
video,
several
of the
men
appear
to pull
on and
hold
down
Fredericks’
arms and
legs
while
others
sit or
lay atop
his
chest
and
abdomen.
Toward
the end
of the
video,
the teen
appears
limp and
falls
back to
the
floor
when
staffers
try to
sit him
up.
Others
then
move in
and
start
CPR.
“He’s
not
fighting
at all
... his
shoes
and his
feet are
just
lying
there,”
Fieger
said,
referring
to the
videotape.
The
teenager
went
into
cardiac
arrest,
was
hospitalized
and died
two days
later,
authorities
said.
The
death
was
ruled a
homicide
and the
doctor
who
performed
the
autopsy
said
Fredericks
died of
asphyxia.
Two
male
staffers
and a
female
nurse —
Michael
Mosley
of
Battle
Creek,
Zachary
Solis of
Lansing
and
Heather
McLogan
of
Kalamazoo
— were
fired
and have
been
charged
with
involuntary
manslaughter
and
second-degree
child
abuse in
Fredericks’
death.
Fieger
said he
is
urging
authorities
to
recommend
charging
others.
“As
you can
see in
the
video,
far more
than two
people
are
involved
in
suffocating
him,”
Fieger
said. “I
would
urge
them to
reconsider
the
other
people
... who
are
clearly
involved
in the
killing
of
Cornelius.”
Fredericks
had been
a ward
of the
state
for
several
years,
following
his
mother’s
death
when his
father
was
incarcerated.
Fieger
said his
office
had a
forensic
examiner
review
the
footage
and that
portions
of the
videotape
are
missing.
He
didn’t
specifically
say that
he
believed
the
video
had been
edited
or
explain
what had
happened,
or why.
“It
jumps
and
there
suddenly
people
are no
longer
in the
scene
that
were
there
one
second
before,”
he said.
In
its
investigation,
the
state of
Michigan
disclosed
that
staff
members
at
Lakeside
had also
suffocated
Fredericks
as a
form of
discipline,
according
to
Fieger.
“It
is a
horrific
videotape
and it
demonstrates
what
other
employees
have
told us
is a
culture
of fear
and
abuse at
the
Lakeside
facility,”
Fieger
said.
“One
employee
told us
that in
order to
work
there
all you
needed
was to
be
breathing
and
accept
$13 per
hour.”
“The
mechanism
for
dealing
with
children
in this
facility
was
abuse
and
fear,”
he
added.
“In
fact,
suffocation
was
regularly
practiced
upon
children.
They
called
it
‘fearing.’”
Lakeside
Academy
and its
operator,
Sequel
Youth
and
Family
Services,
are
named in
the
civil
lawsuit.
The
staff
members’
actions
shown in
the
video
don’t
“adhere
to the
Sequel
and
Lakeside
Academy
policies
and
procedures
related
to the
use of
emergency
safety
interventions,”
Sequel
Youth
and
Family
Services
said in
a
statement
Tuesday.
It
also
said
Lakeside
employees
are
trained
in
deescalation
techniques
and that
its
policy
is to
only use
restraints
as
emergency
safety
interventions
when “a
student
exhibits
imminent
danger
to
themselves
and ...
when a
student
exhibits
imminent
danger
to
others,
and in
those
cases to
use the
minimal
level of
intervention
possible.”
“Otherwise,
a
restraint
is not
an
appropriate
first
response,
and
restraints
are
never to
be used
as a
means of
coercion,
discipline,
convenience,
or
retaliation
by
staff,”
the
company
said.
Lakeside
had a
contract
with the
Michigan
Department
of
Health
and
Human
Services
to care
for
youths
in the
state’s
foster
care and
juvenile
justice
systems.
The
state
said
last
month
that it
had
terminated
that
contract
with
Lakeside
Academy
and
removed
all 125
youth
being
housed
there.
JooYeun
Chang,
who
oversees
Michigan’s
child
welfare
system,
said the
state
needs to
“totally
overhaul”
its
oversight
of
residential
facilities
for
youth.
“What’s
important
is we
look at
the
totality
of
what’s
happening,
how
these
institutions
are
being
used and
how we
monitor
and
provide
oversight
and
training,”
Chang
told
WOOD-TV.
Sequel
Youth
and
Family
Services
operates
facilities
in other
states,
according
to
Fieger.