Sunday, May 18, 2014

Breaking down the (Kendrick) Johnson vs Lowndes Lawsuit

Attorneys for the Johnson family, Benjamin Crump and Chevene King

I asked a friend, an attorney, if she would write a legal analysis for the lawsuit filed by the Johnson family in Superior Court yesterday..she kindly agreed to do so.  Because of the hateful vitriol and threatened violence coming from the some of the Kendrick Johnson supporters, she asked to be identified by an alias, we'll call her Attorney Delores Hays.  Thank you so much Attorney Hays, hopefully your hard work will shed some light on the absurdity of what is contained within the Johnson's complaint.

Kendrick Johnson: Issues in Complaint Revised

Asides - Bullying and racism
From the Daily Mail/UK: According to one of Kendrick’s best friends the attack was unprovoked. ‘This kid came out of nowhere,’ Rickey Giddens, 17, told MailOnline about the ‘real big’ unidentified boy.
‘He whooped him. My son stood his ground and stopped him. But this guy here is a bully'
Kendrick's father: ‘The kid just wanted to fight Kendrick and he was like "I don’t know you, so why you want to fight me for?" It shocked me.'
My son was the first one to whoop him,’ said Mr Johnson, who is being represented by Benjamin Crump, the civil rights attorney who became a national name as the lawyer for Trayvon Martin's family.
‘He whooped him. My son stood his ground and stopped him. But this guy here is a bully'.
After the two were separated, the elder student was turned over to his parents while Kendrick was forced to ride home in a police cruiser. Read more
This story about the bus altercation has been hashed and re-hashed ad nauseam, however, due to the "bullying" allegations in this filing, I am just going to bullet point the facts, as documented an/or witnessed by students and staff on the bus that day:
  • Kendrick was 16 at the time of the fight
  • The "other" boy was 14
  • Both Kendrick and the "other" boy were Freshmen
  • Kendrick rode in the resource officer's car home because his parents were not at the game and he had no other way home
  • Kendrick and the other boy knew each other, how could they not, they played football together
  • Kendrick was taken off the team for grades, not because of the fight
  • Kendrick and the "other" boy did, in fact, speak again and did a Science project together after the incident

I imagine this depicts what Kendrick Johnnson's coach meant when he described KJ squatting and praying during games.
Below is a video that shows one of Kendrick's coaches talking about KJ at KJ's funeral.  He describes him in a way that one would make one hard pressed to believe Kendrick was a victim of  bullying.   His coach: Kendrick was, "A quiet leader"...."He loved the game and he loved his teammates".   Start video at 17:00 to hear just the coach. 



I've looked at countless tweets between KJ and his friends, and could find nothing to indicate KJ had been the victim of ceaseless bullying.  Even the above tweets are just 17 year old kids talking smack to each other.

This bullying accusation is almost as absurd as the legal complaint, in my opinion.  The bullying was alleged to have been done for a year after the school bus incident.   I pulled up KJ's twitter account and found these tweets close to two months prior to KJ's tragic death.  They (the boy he scuffled with), sound like jocks talking trash, period.

    1. oh yea, dem niggas gne catch hell from us. Lol

    2. Tweet text

Racism is mentioned in the filing.  Kendrick made a choice to retrieve his shoe from a mat that he could not easily unroll or tip over to retrieve...it's was vertical and placed behind 20 or so other mats and against a wall.  His choice, while profoundly tragic, was made split-second and, in hindsight, might have benefited from a bit more thought, but he was in a hurry to get to his next class.

In my opinion, after researching and reading Ms Hays' legal analysis and knowing the available facts of the case, this legal complaint is a matter of an Attorney and his clients making a last-ditch effort to throw everything in his bag of shakedown tricks at the wall, hoping something sticks.  I think there will be a summary judgment and I think this filing will backfire on the Attorneys who filed it and the parents they represent, Kenneth and Jackie Johnson.

Read more about the Kendrick Johnson case, including legal and investigative documents HERE.


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