The bullet a Boston English High School dean fired into the again of a scholar’s head in 2015 ended up costing him greater than his job and the 26 years he’s serving in jail — greater than $10 million extra.
U.S. District Court Judge Leo T. Sorokin ordered Friday that former highschool dean and East Coast Latin Kings member Shaun Harrison pay his then-17-year-old sufferer a complete of $10,080,875 in damages.
That determine breaks down into three elements: $7.5 million for sufferer Luis Angel Rodriguez’s “physical pain and suffering and emotional distress,” Sorokin wrote in his judgment, $80,875 for the medical payments, and $2.5 million in punitive damages.
The ruling stops wanting the entire justice that Rodriguez’s lawyer John Martin of Keches Law Group believes is afforded to his shopper, because the ruling makes clear that the damages pertain to Harrison’s “individual capacity,” and never his official capability as an worker of Boston Public Schools.
Charges towards BPS and Harrison in his official capability there, excepting one rely, had been dismissed in July 2019.
Harrison was criminally convicted of tried homicide in May 2018 and sentenced to 26 years in state jail in Walpole.
Harrison was a self-professed anti-violence advocate recognized by college students on the Jamaica Plain highschool as “Rev” for a pastor-like demeanor.
That facade crumbled after Rodriguez — his jaw shattered from the .380 bullet fired from point-blank vary into the again of his head — dragged himself up from the snowy sidewalk outdoors a Sunoco fuel station on Massachusetts Avenue on March 5, 2015, hailed a passing automobile and provided one phrase on the hospital to establish who had tried to kill him: “Rev.”
“Miraculously, Rodriguez survived through a combination of gritty determination — he plugged the hole in his head with his fingers to stanch the bleeding,” Sorokin wrote in his ruling, “… and good fortune — the bullet missed his brain stem and carotid artery by two centimeters.”
Harrison — employed on on the Jamaica Plain highschool that January — began assembly with Rodriguez, a sophomore on the time, as a result of he was having hassle in class when his girlfriend was transferred out.
Soon, Harrison hinted at one other aspect to himself with a reference to being “messed up off some weed and lean,” which is a phrase for codeine, and shortly requested Rodriguez to start out dealing pot to different college students.
The bullet that ended this enterprise association stays lodged in Rodriguez’s head and causes him complications and ache in chilly climate. His face is half paralyzed, he’s obtained listening to loss and weights are wanted for his eyelids to open and shut. The PTSD makes it arduous to carry down a job and he obtained hooked on opiates after being prescribed painkillers for his accidents, his lawyer stated.
“His efforts to overcome emotional trauma and addiction and addiction caused by this incident have been nothing short of heroic,” Martin advised the Herald. “And he strives every day to be a positive influence on his community.”
The subsequent step, Martin stated, is interesting to the First Circuit to proceed to go after Boston Public Schools for his or her position. He — and complaints within the case — stated that “There were a lot of signs that he was a risk to be around children.”
A metropolis lawyer representing BPS didn’t return the Herald’s name for remark.
“Our hope in lawsuits like this is always that the jury impose liability and accountability on caregivers that makes the community safer,” Martin stated. “The judgment can send shockwaves to inner-city schools to ensure that predators and gang members are not allowed access to our children.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”