Kentucky School District to Pay $1.75M After Teaching Assistant Broke Child’s Legs

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The family of an autistic teenager whose legs were broken when a teaching assistant physically restrained him will be paid $1.75 million by a Kentucky school district.

The family did not sue the Jefferson County Public Schools, and an internal investigation found no evidence of excessive force, but the district decided to resolve the case anyway, spokeswoman Jennifer Brislin told the Courier-Journal.

The boy nearly died, spending a week in intensive care and needing blood transfusions to survive.

Witnesses said the boy was being disruptive before teaching assistant Sherman Williams gripped him from behind and lowered him from a chair to the floor in November 2014.

Medical experts said their descriptions don’t match the injuries, and that an outside investigation is needed.

Joe Mullen Sr., president of JKM Training, which provides the Safe Crisis Management Training for the school system, said it was hard to believe that such injuries could have occurred with the type of restraint that witnesses described.

“That cannot break your thigh bones,” nurse Cynthia Curtsinger told a panel that reviewed the case this month for possible abuse. “They were terrible fractures.”

The cabinet declined to substantiate abuse based on information it gathered. According to JCPS records obtained by the newspaper, an internal investigation found no evidence that Williams violated the district policy “by using excessive force.”

Williams was initially suspended but returned to work last August.