Summary: The parents of a football player who was beaten by his teammates is suing the county for $12 million.
In a savage hazing attack, Rodney Kim Jr, 14, was beaten in his high school locker room. The footage was caught on tape, and he could be seen curled up in a ball as his older classmates punched and kicked him until they broke the freshman’s arm.
Now, his parents are suing for $12 million, according to Fox News. Not only are they asking for money but they want the high school to forfeit its upcoming season, for felony charges to be made against the attackers, and for the entire football coaching staff to be terminated.
Kim Jr is a freshman football player at Davidson High School in Mobile, Alabama. His teammates viciously beat him up and filmed it, and last week, the footage went viral. About twenty students were involved with the hazing, and is parents told Fox 10 that they want the school to ban hazing forever.
“There’s some hatred in there, I mean they beat him, they maliciously beat him. I mean, it’s just uncalled for…I mean you never envision your child, being so helpless, and you can’t do anything,” Rodney Kim, Sr., told FOX10.
The high school freshman was taken to the hospital and he had a broken arm, busted lip, and several bruises. His family’s attorney, Charles Bonner, said that after the attack he has suffered from insomnia.
“They’ve taken from him his dream, how much is a dream worth? They’ve taken from him his dream of being a football player. He was a star football player…So $12 million, why $12 million? Because it’s not enough for what they’ve left this boy with, he is damaged for life,” Bonner said. “It’s not the kids who beat him, who savagely attacked him, that are responsible. We expect kids to be kids. We don’t expect adults to whom we entrust the lives and the safety of our children to turn a deaf ear and a blind eye and say nothing about this kind of violence.”
Mobile County District Attorney Ashley Rich said that the office plans to prosecute the students involved, and so far, four players have been suspended.
Fox 10 said that the community has shown support for the Kim family and condemned those who attacked him.
“And the Mobile community has been so supportive… All walks of life. We stand with you … They didn’t say we stand behind you… They said we stand with you. And that was motivation to us… The phone calls. Thank you everyone. Thank you,” Mary Kim, the victim’s mother, said to the station.