Being a schoolteacher is a rewarding – but demanding – job, requiring patience and empathy. Parents trust when their children are at school, teachers will prioritize their safety and wellness. Unfortunately, in this instance, a California elementary school teacher abused this trust when she unreasonably restrained a disabled 10-year-old boy with Down syndrome by pinning him face down until hemorrhaging ensued. Chris Keane of The Keane Law Firm, an attorney championing for the safety and rights of abused children statewide, represented the boy against the school district and attained him a significant settlement using a recreation of the traumatic incident.
The boy was put in the instructor's care after the child experienced an outburst in class. Unable to get the boy to comply, the teacher pinned the child to the ground and stood over him, pushing down on his back. Then, as he began to calm down, the teacher moved him to a nearby couch and laid him prone with a beanbag across his back. As she applied her entire body weight onto him, the boy cried that he could not breathe, to which she cruelly responded, “If you can’t breathe, you wouldn’t be able to talk.”
The considerable weight on the boy induced petechiae across his face and body: tiny ruptured blood vessels underneath the skin that, while painless, appear as small brown spots. The abusive restraint was absolutely traumatizing – especially for a child with special needs.
The boy’s parents contacted Chris Keane, who met with the entire family to comfort and guide them through their legal recourse. His goal was to hold the school district accountable for employing an abusive and dangerous teacher. In addition, to demonstrate how the teacher’s excessive force caused physical and neuropsychological damage, Chris needed to link the boy’s injury to the large weight he endured. Therefore, he contacted DK Global to recreate the traumatizing incident and show how the boy’s anatomy was affected when his teacher held him down.
The presentation began with a view of the boy and teacher side-by-side, demonstrating that the woman was 86 pounds heavier than the child. Thus, the disturbing incident was recreated, showing the teacher restraining the boy by forcing her bodyweight across his back. Then, a look at the boy’s anatomy showed his diaphragm, chest cavity, and heart constrict, resulting in limited blood flow in his cardiovascular system. As the boy struggled to breathe, his lungs failed to oxygenate his red blood cells effectively. Additionally, this caused the pressure in his veins to increase and rupture his small venous branches, resulting in visible hemorrhaging across his face.
Chris met with the Defense counsel and shared the animation of the traumatic and abusive incident. After viewing the presentation, the Defense offered a significant settlement for the boy and his family.
Chris Keane has advocated for child abuse victims for over 25 years and is consistently rated one of the “500 Leading Plaintiff’s Lawyers in America” by Lawdragon Magazine. Chris received California's “Street Fighter of the Year” award in 2017 by CAOC after a precedent-setting Supreme Court victory resulting in protections for suspected abuse victims in California. A member of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum, Chris has recovered more than $60,000,000 for his clients.