Lawyers for Black teen who was stabbed say LA school failed to protect him from racist attacks

Lawyers for a Black teenager stabbed outside a Los Angeles high school filed a government claim Friday against the school alleging it failed to protect the boy from violent racist attacks.

On Dec. 9, a stabbing outside Verdugo Hills High School in the city of LA's Sunland-Tujunga neighborhood led to two people being taken to a hospital, one them in serious condition while the other victim suffered injuries not believed to be life-threatening, according to police. One of the individuals wounded was a 14-year-old student, whose attorneys and mother said was attacked inside a boys' bathroom in August — an incident they say the school was aware of.

But the boy was detained by police after the stabbing. His lawyers have said police took him into custody on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon but he is innocent and acted in self-defense. They plan to discuss the case with the LA County District Attorney in hopes charges won't be filed. "He should never have had to go through this," said Brad Gage, one of his attorneys.

Gage said during the incident this month, the teen was chased down by a group of other boys — one of them holding a butcher knife — in a racially motivated attack. He said the other boys are Latino and his 14-year-old client "became terrorized almost immediately when he started high school here." 

The newly filed claim, a precursor to a lawsuit, states that it seeks an estimated $10 million in damages.

According to Gage, the stabbing could have been prevented if the campus took disciplinary action after the incident in August, when he says the teen was physically assaulted and called racial slurs. The lawyer released video Thursday of that earlier incident.

"They are required to take immediate action under the education code, when a student is being threatened," Gage said. "They did not do that."

He said the student's mother met with Verdugo Hills High School officials at the start of September, and she expressed concerns for her son's safety, telling the school he had been threatened with being stabbed or killed.

The Los Angeles Unified School District, which oversees the campus, declined to comment on the allegations Friday.

"Los Angeles Unified does not comment on pending or ongoing litigation," reads the statement from a district spokesperson.

The boy's mother, who asked to not be identified for safety reasons, said the school actually suggested she transfer him out while not disciplining the other students involved. Given her concerns, she said she planned to do that but not before having him finish out the current semester ahead of winter break.

"So I said, 'No, my son is going to stay here. He's doing well, he's not going anywhere. He's going to finish,'" she said. "That's what I'm most upset about — they just sat there and did nothing."

It's not clear who the other students involved are, or whether they deny the allegations, as minors cannot legally be identified by law enforcement. 

But the teen's mother maintains he has been preyed on by other students, and the violence is racially motivated.

"We are the minority in this community, and my son has stated he was targeted — clearly targeted," she said. "He didn't deserve that. He was just trying to go to school, get his education like everybody else."

"I still feel like my son was in a situation where he could've been killed," she said.