The family of a Catholic University student who was gunned down in Petworth is suing the District for $20 million in a wrongful-death suit.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in federal court in D.C., alleges that the accused shooter was a juvenile criminal offender who was in the custody of the city’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services at the time of the shooting.

The lawsuit claims the District acted with indifference and negligence in the supervision of the teenager, resulting in the August 2010 killing of 31-year-old Neil Godleski.

A spokesman for the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services on Thursday did not return a phone message for comment.

According to police at the time, Godleski was gunned down in Sherman Circle shortly after midnight while biking home from the restaurant where he worked as a waiter.

Police said 17-year-old Eric D. Foreman fired multiple shots at the cyclist, then stood over the college student and fired two more shots. Foreman raked through Godleski’s pockets, stole $60 and fled. The motive was robbery, police said.

Foreman was a criminal juvenile offender who was supposed to be under the supervision and detention of DYRS, the lawsuit states. Foreman had been sent to live in the Dupree House, a group home at 5619 Colorado Ave. NW.

The suit said Foreman was known to be a gang member and had a propensity for violence, and cited a report that one in five of all homicides in the District involved a youth in the custody of DYRS, either as a suspect or a victim.

The lawsuit comes at a time when Mayor Vince Gray is trying to get a handle on youth violence and the city’s juvenile justice system.

Five of the six people who were shot on Halloween were teenagers, and the 17-year-old boy who was shot in the head in Georgetown that night was also under the supervision of DYRS, sources have told The Washington Examiner.

The teenager accused of shooting a cabbie over 75 cents last week in Northeast had escaped from a group home at the time of the slaying, sources said. He was later found to have hid at the home of his aunt, a DYRS counselor.

And the teen who was arrested last week in a fatal stabbing of another teen in a Petworth playground also had escaped custody of the youth agency.

Since changing it’s Juvenile policies, DYRS has had a series of missteps leading to multiple fatalities.

Teen who fled from BWI is latests to escape from city juvenile authorities

At least 9 wards of DC now charged with murder

53 youths in killings were D.C. wards on ‘at risk’ list

failing to protect a high school student who was beaten by three schoolmates minutes after she asked an assistant principal for protection. The Genesee County jury found the administrator had acted with reckless disregard for the student’s safety. The judgment in Shelby v. LeRoy Central School District an example of tort litigation losses nationally by school districts.

Crystal Shelby, suffered brain injuries from a May 1995 beating by three girls in the hallway of Le Roy High School, located about 25 miles from Rochester, N.Y.

“The lessons here for school districts are: ‘Don’t disregard a student who asks for help,’ and ‘You have to be effective in your discipline,’ ” said plaintiff’s counsel Terry D. Smith of Smith, Keller, Miner & O’Shea of Buffalo, N.Y. Translation. It is not enough to have some discipline policy in place. The policy has to be effective in maintaining a safe environment conducive to learning.

“The girls who assaulted Crystal were three hard cases who had been disciplined and suspended time and again.” According to attorneys on both sides, the night before the assault Shelby had an argument with the three girls, who explicitly threatened to attack her the following day in school. The following morning Shelby told assistant principal Neil O’Brien that she had been threatened but he took no action and told the girl to proceed to her homeroom.

During the liability phase of the bifurcated trial the jury found O’Brien had acted with reckless disregard for Shelby’s safety. The three girls attacked Shelby in the hallway, beating her head with a padlock and slamming her headfirst into a wall. She suffers hydrocephalus, a condition known in lay terms as water on the brain and characterized by dangerous pooling of fluid in the cranium. She has endured seven hospital stays and six brain surgeries to treat the condition, according to Brian Mahoney, who represented Shelby along with Smith. Shelby has two shunts in her cranium to drain fluid. She suffers persistent cognitive difficulties.

Parents sued Mt. Diablo Unified School District in the District Court for the Northern District of California for failing to protect their 14-year old son who was a special education student with emotional and behavioral disabilities enrolled at the Mt. Diablo Unified School District.

The facts alleged were that since January 27, 2009, Colbey has been eligible for special education services in the District under the category of “Emotional Disturbance”. Colbey received an Individualized Education Program (“IEP”) that required a small specialized setting with frequent individual support where Colbey would be protected from bullying and harassment by other students.

Despite his diagnoses and the recommendations of the IEP team, the District failed to protect Colbey from harassment and assault by peers on the school bus and in his segregated classrooms. School staff allegedly allowed Colbey to be harassed by other students in his program, and in one instance placed him in a “time-out room” with another student who physically attacked and injured Colbey, causing a broken collarbone and fear of returning to school

The District Court held that it had jurisdiction over the case and the settlement offer, and that Colbey was entitled to damages for the school’s failure to protect him from physical assault by another student.

The American Association of School Administrators (AASA) recently released a report entitled Keeping-Schools-Safe: How Seclusion and Restraint Protects Students and School Personnel.

Some highlights from AASA’s Report:

AASA has long opposed the prohibition of seclusion and restraint in public schools. The fact is the use of seclusion and restraint has enabled many students with serious emotional or behavioral conditions to be educated not only within our public schools, but also in the least restrictive and safest environments possible.

In response to a request from the Kansas State Board of Education for guidelines on the use of seclusion and restraint, a parent and special-education teacher anonymously submitted this letter in 2011.

To: Kansas Legislators & State Board of Ed.,

. . . It should be noted that without the appropriate use of seclusion and restraint procedures, I am 100% certain that my daughter would not have been able to stay in public school. Her “meltdowns” over the years have been intense! They include every behavior you can imagine and she has succeeded in hurting several adults and damaging property on numerous occasions. This has been an incredibly difficult journey for our family. Without the use of seclusion and restraints, Jane would have been placed out of home in a residential school setting, which honestly, would have been intolerable for me. However, there is no chance a public school could have managed her behavior without appropriate techniques.

. . .It would be disastrous for some students if seclusion and restraints were not options in public school. While I would be appalled to see any child hurt or their self-esteem damaged, those instances of abuse of seclusion and restraint should be dealt with on an individual basis. We should not punish schools and students where things are going well.

IDEA statute was never meant to restrict parents from receiving a unique, effective education plan for their child.

For these students, federal legislation that prohibits these practices from being written into an individualized education plan (IEP) or behavioral intervention plan means that school personnel are unable to work with parents to create a plan for coping with the student when their behavior becomes unmanageable. Legislation that prohibits parents and school personnel from communicating about the student’s needs and corresponding school interventions runs counter to the entire purpose of the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA). If IEP teams comprised of both parents and school personnel agree the use of seclusion and restraint will enable a student to remain in the least restrictive environment possible and to educationally benefit from the teaching and services the student needs, then these techniques should be allowed to be written into the student’s IEP. The IDEA statute was never meant to restrict parents from receiving a unique, effective education plan for their child.

HWC’s Position

Not 12 hours prior to seeing AASA’s Report, HWC was advising the Wisconsin Legislature of the same thing namely that seclusion and restraint are written into a student’s behavioral plan or IEP so that teachers and clinicians can intervene and stop a student’s maladaptive behavior before the behavior escalates to the point of being seriously destructive to the student or others.

We also agree with AASA that any law, policy or regulation that would limit the professionals and persons who have actual responsibility to determine whether restraint is appropriate and in the best interest of the student is unlawful. The right to make such determination belongs to the person and professionals and person directly responsible for the student. IDEA was never intended to restrict parents in their options for developing a behavioral and treatment plan for their child.

AASA: How Seclusion and Restraint Protects Students and School Personnel

The family of a boy who was shot to death at a Madison County middle school in 2010 is suing Madison school officials and others. They say the school officials failed to protect him from a problem student.

The News Courier reports (http://bit.ly/z6WjDi ) the lawsuit was filed Thursday in Madison County.

The suit states that school officials — including the school board, Superintendent Dee Fowler and Principal Robbie Smith — failed to protect Todd Brown from another student who had a history of behavioral issues.

Brown’s family maintains that the other student should not have been transferred to Discovery Middle School because of a history of bad behavior, and that school officials were aware of that history.