Mom of 1st grader who passed out while restrained sues district, security guard
Asbury NJ June 9 2018 The mother of an Asbury Park elementary school student is suing the district for damages she says her son suffered when he was restrained so tightly by a security guard that he lost consciousness.
The incident occurred three years ago, on April 28, 2015, when the boy was a 7-year-old first grader at Barack Obama School, according to a lawsuit filed this past April in state Superior Court by his mother, Karen McMillan. The suit names the Asbury Park Board of Education and the security guard, Barry Gramenty, as defendants, seeking damages for the boy’s physical and emotional suffering, as well as legal fees.
“The plaintiff was held so tightly by the defendant, Barry Gramenty, that the plaintiff, N.J., was going to throw up,” the suit states. “The minor plaintiff, N.J., was eventually caused to lose consciousness.”
The suit further alleges that the school board “was reckless, careless, and/or negligent in that they failed to properly hire, screen, and/or train their security guard.”
The suits states that the boy, who had a learning disability, “sustained severe painful bodily injuries, loss of consciousness and severe emotional damages.”
The suit does not state why the security guard physically restrained the boy, or what conduct or events precipitated the incident. The boy’s lawyer, Nathaniel Davis, did not respond to phone or email requests to elaborate on the assertions in the suit.
A May 2015 Asbury Park Press story quoted district officials as saying that the boy was restrained after throwing a temper tantrum, though his mother was quoted as saying he had never suffered such a “meltdown” and questioned the need to place him in a “choke hold.”
A spokeswoman for the district, Chanta Jackson, confirmed statements attributed to her in the 2015 story that all policies and procedures had been followed at the time of the incident, and that the matter had been referred to law enforcement authorities. Jackson told the Asbury Park Press at the time that Gramenty had been placed on paid leave. However, Jackson declined to comment any further this week.
Asbury Park Police did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s office, Charles Webster, said his office had no record of the case, including any criminal charges against the security guard.
A lawyer for the school board, Adam Weiss of the Busch Law Group in Metuchen, declined to say whether Gramenty still worked for the district.
“I can tell you that he school district takes these allegations extremely seriously and will rely on our insurance counsel to mount a vigorous defense,” Weiss said, referring to a separate law firm that is defending against the suit.
On Tuesday, the district’s insurance counsel filed papers seeking to move the suit from state Superior Court to U.S. District Court, asserting that a federal judge should hear the case because of the allegation that the the security guard and district had violated federal law.
The suit asserts that the boy suffers from a learning disability, and that federal law known as Section 504 is intended to “protect the rights of individuals with disabilities in programs and activities that receive Federal financial assistance from the U.S. Department of Education.”
The insurance lawyer, Brent Davis — no relation to the boy’s lawyer — declined to comment on the substance of the suit’s allegations.
